


The Sign

by Kachelofen



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-03
Updated: 2013-10-03
Packaged: 2017-12-28 07:37:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 49,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/989447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kachelofen/pseuds/Kachelofen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four years post-series. Brian receives a phone call he cannot ignore.</p><p>WARNING: This is very dark. I cannot stress enough how this is NOT for those readers who are easily upset.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> There's a shifting point of view, denoted by a larger line space between paragraphs. You'll get the hang of it, I'm sure. :-)

 

**PART  ONE**

 

Tony Damato, the bellhop at the Four Seasons Hotel, ignores Mr. Kinney’s cellphone for the first few beats. He knows the drill – Mr. Kinney never answers his cellphone, especially not in the middle of a blowjob. They've done this several times over the last year or so. Mr. Kinney is at the hotel a lot and when he can’t be bothered to find his own entertainment for the night, he asks Tony when he’ll be off duty. That’s all he has to do. But then Tony finally pulls his mouth off the most beautiful cock he’s ever seen – and he’s seen quite a few – to smirk up at the man. _Mamma Mia_? Really? ABBA so doesn’t match his image of this guest at all.

 

Brian moves his hips backwards to stop the trick from starting up again, noticing his disappointed look with detached satisfaction. “You need to leave,” he says and tucks his rapidly deflating cock into his jeans before making his way over to his cellphone. It seems appropriate somehow to be properly dressed for this.

“I can wait for you to finish,” the guy says hopefully, no doubt fondly remembering the times they fucked before and reluctant to leave before he gets what he was asked here for.

By that time, Brian has reached the nightstand and picked up the phone. “Fuck off,” he says coldly and wonders whatever gave him the idea that being semi-polite would work. Tricks are always too keen for his attention to take a hint that doesn’t involve profanity.

He watches as the guy scrambles to his feet and makes his way out of the hotel room before he hits the button to connect the call. He knows who it’ll be. Whenever he changes his cellphone, he migrates all the numbers and their designated ringtones – as devised by one very baked Justin Taylor on a lazy afternoon a long, long time ago, in another life, well, someone else’s life almost. What he doesn’t know is how she got hold of this number because everyone who’s bestowed this great gift is told in no uncertain terms to never divulge it to _anyone_ under pain of being one of his blocked numbers.

“Kinney.”

_“Brian? Thank God.”_

He doesn’t even need to suppress a sarcastic response to that because the worried tone has increased his heartbeat in seconds. He knows she wouldn’t call for trivial reasons, otherwise he would have heard from her over the past three years, but he doesn’t like this tone – at all. Still, it wouldn’t do to appear too concerned.

“Mother Taylor. What can I do for you?”

_“I’m in Mexico. On holiday. Well, on honeymoon actually. And I can’t get a flight out until the day after tomorrow.”_

Okay. That’s certainly a piece of information of questionable usefulness, but he thinks that she’ll probably enlighten him as to why this should be of any interest to him if he stays silent. Only, he doesn’t like that she’s so frantic and borderline incoherent. He’s only seen her like that once before and he doesn’t want to be reminded of long, empty hospital corridors and nearly hysterical mothers. He drops the slightly mocking tone of indifference that has stood him in good stead for so long.

“What happened, Jennifer?”

_“What? Oh, right. I had a phone call. Justin’s been admitted to hospital. He’s had some kind of accident. I can’t get there until the day after tomorrow. I know I have no right to ask this of you, but could you make your way there? I know you’re not... I'm begging you, Brian, I need to know what’s going on. They said he‘s in a coma. I know that it’s a lot to ask, but could you go to New York? I don’t know who else to ask. You’re the only one with the means to get there quickly. Please, Brian!”_

Brian’s first reaction is to say no. He’s not doing this again, sitting in a hospital, waiting to see if Justin will live or die. This time he’s not responsible, this time he was miles away when it happened and he hasn’t even spoken to Justin in nearly three years. But he knows he will always be responsible for the lad, no matter how far he removes himself from the scene and as much as he wants to say no, what comes out is: “I’m already in New York. Which hospital is he in?”

_“You are? Oh, thank God for that! He’s at the Memorial. How quickly can you get there? I give you my number. Do you have a pen?”_

He contemplates pretending that he needs to write it down, but then that seems too pathetic for words to him after all. He doesn’t play games anymore, hasn’t done for a long time. “I have your number. What do you want me to do? I can go there, but will they even let me see him? Doesn’t he have a partner you could call?”

 _“Don’t get me started on Owen."_ There’s a mumble that sounds like, _‘Useless prick’._ Then: _“Of course, they’ll let you see him. You’re still his POA.”_

The stupid twat! Why would Justin do something like that? How difficult can it be to make some simple changes to his medical records? Brian doesn’t want this. He doesn’t want to go there. He doesn’t want to see him. He doesn’t want to make any decisions for him. He doesn’t want him to die. Most of all, he doesn’t want him to die. That isn’t part of the plan.

“I’ll leave right now, Jennifer.”

_“Thank you, Brian. Thank you. Please call me as soon as you know anything.”_

“I will.”

He presses the ‘end call’ button because he knows that if he doesn’t, she will stay on the line all the way to the hospital. Not that he can blame her. She’s Justin’s mother and she’s understandably worried. Brian doesn’t want to get caught up in that. He’s been trying for a long time to stay away from a lot of things, but things – or rather, people – have a way of not staying away from him.

When he gets out into the corridor, after gathering his essentials, he runs into the bellhop, who’s still lingering about. Some people really don’t understand the simplest instructions. How much more unambiguously than ‘fuck off’ could he possibly express himself? It always used to work. He must be losing his touch. However, for now, this works in his favor.

“Get me a cab,” he barks at him without slowing down and he’s satisfied to hear the guy talk to someone on the phone or the walkie-talkie – or the bush drums for all he cares. All he needs to know is that when he walks out of the hotel, there’s a cab waiting for him.

Half an hour later, he steps into the pristine foyer of the Memorial Hospital and walks up to the reception desk. After peering at the nurse’s name tag, he smiles winningly. “Hi, Sasha, my name’s Brian Kinney. I’m here for Justin Taylor. He was brought in after an accident.”

“Are you a relative?”

“No. But if you look in his medical records, you will find that I’m his health care proxy.”

He keeps his eyes on her to avoid looking around, because all hospitals are inherently the same and they all bring the same memories. But he can’t avoid the smell, that faint air of disinfectant and misery. 

Sasha checks his credentials and directs him to the Intensive Care Unit. Of course, where else would Justin be? He doesn’t do anything in half measures. 

A nurse by the name of Amanda, according to her tag, collects him by the ICU entrance and makes him wear plastic covers over his Gucci loafers and a hospital frock over his clothes. He tries to be annoyed about that, but his mind isn’t cooperating for once. Just before they reach the cubicle, he touches her arm to stop her.

“What...” He has to clear his throat. “What kind of an accident was it?”

“Accident?”

“Justin Taylor. He was in an accident, wasn’t he?”

“Who told you that? Mr. Taylor was brought in with a case of meningitis. He was unconscious when he arrived this morning and has been ever since. He’s on a respirator. We’re keeping him sedated.”

“How is he?”

“We don’t know yet. We’re monitoring him carefully. We’ll know more by tomorrow morning.”

“Who brought him in?”

“His lecturer. There’s been a small cluster of meningitis cases at the university. It sometimes happens at the beginning of the new year. He was very lucky because the people there recognized the symptoms straight away because of the previous cases.”

She hands him a surgical mask. “You need to wear one of these. Wash your hands thoroughly when you leave and... don’t kiss him.” She smiles a crooked smile, part embarrassed, part curious.

“Really not a problem,” he mutters, slipping on his mask. 

To an outside observer, the deep breath he takes before he goes in is imperceptible. He doesn’t hesitate or falter, just breathes deeply as he walks over the threshold. The cubicle is crammed with machines and IV poles and the bed, and Justin looks smaller than Brian remembers him. The tube coming out of his mouth is secured around the back of his neck and makes him look like he’s been gagged. Brian wants to rip it out because it looks so uncomfortable.

Justin’s hair is longer again, not as long as it was before he shaved it off for the Pink Posse but longer than when they first met. He’s admonishing himself for noticing it and even more for wanting to touch it. He always loved Justin’s hair, especially when it’s slightly sweaty like it is now. Only it used to be sweat-soaked for other reasons and now he feels sick for thinking it. There are a myriad of reasons why he shouldn’t be here.

The respirator makes a strange hissing noise at regular intervals, reminding him that Justin is alive. It’s not so much that he looks dead, it’s more that he doesn’t look like a person at all, more like a life-sized doll, inanimate and he half-expects him to feel cold when he touches him. But Justin’s hand is reassuringly warm and Brian finds himself unable to let go.

 

Amanda Hilton works around him quietly, checking her patient’s vital signs, making sure that all the machines are working correctly. She wants to offer the visitor some comforting conversation, but he doesn’t appear receptive. He doesn’t even seem to be in the room, although he has taken Justin’s hand. That’s good. It might help. Patients who’ve woken up from comas often say that they could feel a touch or hear a voice. She doesn’t think it would be much use asking this man to talk. He looks like he doesn’t even talk to conscious people, never mind comatose ones.

The doctor turns up ten minutes later because she alerted him as soon as she heard that finally someone’s taking an interest in her patient. Justin has been here for ten hours and this is the first visitor. It’s strange because he looks like such a sweet boy, but his emergency contact is his mother and the hospital administrator’s secretary had some trouble getting hold of her. And then there’s the small matter that she doesn’t have power of attorney, this man does.

 

“Hello, I’m Dr. Anderson. May I ask who you are?”

The man lets go of the patient’s hand with a frown, as if he’s not quite sure how it ended up in his. “Kinney. Brian Kinney.”

“You’re his health care proxy?”

A nod. “Apparently so. Although I have to tell you that I haven’t seen your patient in a few years, so I can’t tell you anything.”

“That won’t be necessary. But we need to know your phone number, so we can reach you at any time. By law, you’re the person to make the decisions.”

“What decisions? You give him some drugs – he gets better. Seems pretty simple to me, no decision making involved. That’s what you get paid for, isn’t it? Making people better?”

“We’d like your permission to do a lumbar puncture to confirm the strain.”

“Wanna explain to me what you’re talking about?”

So, Anderson does. He explains that they would like to draw some fluid from the patient’s spine to confirm that he has meningitis and which strain. He describes how the procedure is carried out and the risks. He has to do that because it’s the law, but he really thinks that the danger is negligible and, although the procedure isn’t strictly necessary, it always irks him to treat patients by their symptoms alone, without scientific proof. Of course, he doesn’t tell this man that, but the guy looks like a reasonable man anyway. A man of the world.

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said no. You’re sticking a needle into Justin’s spine over my dead body.”

“Mr. Kinney, the risks are really...”

“This is not a discussion, Dr. Anderson. You asked for my consent. I’m not giving it. It’s a useless procedure to satisfy your curiosity. It won’t make any difference to his treatment, but it could paralyze him. The answer’s no.”

“Mr. Kinney. There hasn’t been a single incident of that in the history of this hospital.”

“Irrelevant. You’re not doing it. I won’t allow it. Now tell me what you _are_ doing.”

The doctor stares at him a little longer, annoyed that he’s been overruled – he’s always annoyed when that happens. Who do these people think they are, disregarding his expertise? He also doesn’t like the imperative tone, but he recognizes it for what it is, the tone of a man who’s used to being obeyed.

“We would like to take him off the respirator. For that, we need to lower his sedation. He should wake up naturally. The antibiotics have started to take effect and his fever’s going down. The only way to tell how he’s doing is by lowering all the medication and taking him off the respirator.”

“He _should_ wake up naturally? There’s not an awful lot you actually _know,_ is there? You want to stick a needle in his back to find out if he even has meningitis. You want to take him off medication to see if he wakes up. And I suppose you want to take him off the machine to see if he can even breathe. Now tell me _exactly_ what risks we’re talking about.”

“Mr. Kinney, will you please stay calm.”

 

Brian laughs a sarcastic laugh. “Believe me, Doc, when I’m no longer calm, you’ll be able to tell the difference. Now, we’ve already established that you’re not sticking any needles into him. Now tell me why you want to stop his medication.”

“The antibiotics have lowered his temperature. He will need them for about ten days, but he simply doesn’t need to be sedated anymore. However, if we take him off his sedation and he wakes up, his own breathing – when it kicks in – will work against the respirator. It’s… unpleasant to wake up on a respirator, not life-threatening, but it makes most people panic.”

“And if he doesn’t wake up?”

“Not waking up isn’t a problem as such. The problem is that if he doesn’t start breathing spontaneously when we extubate him, then we need to re-intubate him straight away.”

Brian doesn’t think that not waking up can be classed as _not being a problem_ , but he knows what the guy means, at least for that part of his statement. “English please, Doc.”

“If he doesn’t breathe on his own when we take the tube out, we’ll have to put a new one in very quickly.”

“So the choice is between waking up in a panic with a tube down his throat or stop breathing altogether if you take it out?”

 

Anderson hates it when his patients – or even worse, his patients’ relatives – think they can reduce his lifetime experience to simple phrases. There is more involved. It’s always much more complicated than that, but he has to admit that the statement just about covers the basics.

“Or he could just breathe normally when we take it out. There’s no reason why he shouldn’t. He’s young and fit and we caught it early. I’ll reduce his sedation overnight and we’ll re-assess him tomorrow morning.” He can’t wait to get away from this guy, who looks at him as if he’s the most incompetent practitioner he’s ever come across, not the leading expert in his field that he really is. He alters the chart and turns to leave, when the guy stops him.

“What if he wakes up before tomorrow morning?”

“He shouldn’t.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Anderson sighs. “If that should happen, the nurse will be able to extubate him... to take the tube out. It’s really not a big deal in that case.”

“Except for Justin, who will have a panic attack when he wakes up.”

God, what is with this guy? Who the hell is he anyway? Not a relative, just some guy who happens to have the right papers and has delusions of grandeur. Anderson hasn’t seen anybody this suspicious about a patient’s treatment in a long time. “I will make this my first stop tomorrow morning,” he offers magnanimously.

 

Brian just shoots him a dismissive glance and turns back to Justin. After the doctor leaves, he looks at the nurse. “Will you be here all night?”

“Yes, until eight.”

“I need to call Justin’s mother. Do you want me to bring you back a Starbucks? I need to have a smoke as well.”

“I’d love to, but there’re no drinks allowed in the unit. But thank you.”

“When will you stop the sedation?”

She doesn’t mind him asking for information. He’s well within his rights and it’s refreshing to see someone who doesn’t take the doctor’s word for gospel, especially Dr Anderson’s. There’s really no reason why the old fogey can’t come by a couple of times in the night to check up on his patients, like the other doctors usually do, but he won’t. Dr Anderson only ever turns up when he’s specifically called.

“I’ll change the IV bag while you’re gone. Don’t worry, it will take a while to wear off.”

He nods and she can’t help smiling encouragingly. For the first time, he looks a little lost and hesitant, like he can’t tear himself away, but then he straightens and walks out of the room without a backwards glance.

 

Brian gets his coffee from the Starbucks across the road first, then shelters in a quiet corner by the side of the hospital to call Jennifer. She answers on the second ring and he can hear by the sound of her voice that she’s trying not to panic. Or maybe she’s just trying really hard not to admonish him for taking so long. He wouldn’t mind. People admonish him all the time. He doesn’t really care. Although Jennifer has always been one of the few people in his life who doesn’t presume too much, always proper, never overstepping her boundaries, even when he was involved with Justin. _Involved._ Strange expression, that.

It takes a while until she understands that there’s been no accident and her initial relief gives way to dismay that the reality is no less life-threatening. Or at least was. It seems that the worst is over, but Brian knows it’s too much to hope that she’ll release him from his obligation now. 

_“I’ll be there the day after tomorrow. Can you stay with him?”_

“Jennifer, I’m not on vacation. I have work to do.”

_“I know. I’m sorry, Brian. Of course, you go and do your job, but can you stay just a little longer tonight? I hate the idea that he’s there all on his own when he wakes up.”_

“What about his boyfriend then? What’s his name? Olly?”

_“Owen. I don’t want him there. They won’t let him in anyway. He’s not related and he’s not in the medical files. You are.”_

Yeah, doesn’t he know it. He still can’t get his head around that. Why would Justin still give him power over his life, quite literally in this case? Was it just an oversight, a case of not expecting an emergency, not wanting to think about it and ignoring the possibility? That doesn’t sound like Justin. He likes to make plans and be prepared for all eventualities. So it’s deliberate and that’s even worse.

He ends up promising that he’ll stay a little longer because he can do nothing else. He can’t say no to Jennifer because he has no excuse and _‘I don’t want to do this’_ doesn’t sound like a good enough reason under the circumstances. What difference does it make anyway? It’s not as if he sleeps at night. So he could be fucking the bellhop at the Four Seasons right now, but that doesn’t really cause him the slightest pang of regret either. He simply doesn’t care enough. The expression _‘it’s just a fuck’_ has taken on a whole new meaning for Brian Kinney.

He finishes his cigarette and his coffee and makes his way back to Justin’s bedside.

 

Amanda Hilton is used to patients’ relatives being in the room. In her experience, there are two types: the quiet ones and the chatty ones. The quiet ones usually make a little bit of awkward conversation in the beginning – because they feel they should, being at such close quarters with her – and then fall silent, either because they’re overwhelmed by the whole environment or because they’re overcome with worry. The noisy ones are either compensating for their fears or simply don’t care enough about the patient. Sometimes she even gets hit on.

This guy doesn’t fall into either category. She has looked up his name – Brian Kinney – but there’s no indication in the notes why he’s the patient’s proxy. He doesn’t look like he’s related, in fact, these two men couldn’t be more different, physically. The visitor has taken his seat again, his long legs crossed, his hands interlaced on his thigh. He’s dressed in black jeans and a charcoal sweater, both of them form-fitting and high quality. She would call Justin Taylor pretty, even though he’s a man, but with all that blond hair and those even features, it’s the only word that springs to mind. Brian Kinney is simply the most gorgeous man she has ever seen.

When he speaks, there’s not a hint of being intimidated by either the situation or the environment, but if she expected him to be one of the chatty ones, especially after he offered to bring her coffee, she’s surprised. She’s never seen anyone so still. He simply sits there, not moving, his eyes trained on Justin. Even as she moves around to do her job, he doesn’t watch her like most people do, he watches Justin.

Later, she’s doing some paperwork at the table in the corner when he suddenly calls her name in a low voice, with no hint of any emotion and a quiet confidence that she will take heed. She didn’t realize that he’d paid enough attention to even bother to read her name tag. It’s the early hours of the morning now and they’ve been silent the whole time since he came back from his phone call in the evening. When she looks up, he’s not looking at her but the patient, so she gets up and takes the four steps to the bed. Everything seems to be in order. There doesn’t appear to be any change in the patient’s condition.

“He’s waking up.”

She looks at Kinney to see if he’s serious, but his eyes remain on Justin – who appears to be sleeping peacefully.

“What do you mean?”

“He’s waking up. I can tell.”

“How? He looks the same to me.” Her voice is gentle. She’s wondering if this is a delayed reaction to the situation, maybe a slight panic or even wishful thinking on his part.

Finally, Kinney looks up and holds her gaze. “I’ve seen him wake up hundreds of times. Believe me, he’s waking up and you have less than five minutes.”

It suddenly dawns on her why they’re even discussing this: he wants her to take the tube out. She’s not supposed to. It’s the doctors’ duty unless the patient wakes up unexpectedly and she’ll have to remove it in a hurry. That’s always awkward, more for the patient than for her. She has never removed a tube from a patient who wasn’t awake yet without a doctor to give the order and standing by to re-intubate if there’s no spontaneous breathing. Not that she doesn’t know how to intubate in an emergency.

She looks at Kinney, whom she hadn't pegged as being gay at all, and his eyes are earnest, free from overwrought emotions and yet there’s an understated pleading there.

“Are you sure?”

“Completely.”

She looks back at Justin, who’s sleeping on unperturbed. The sedation would have worn off by now and this could be either sleep or a coma. She could get into trouble if she extubates him and he doesn’t start breathing, but she knows that it’ll be an ordeal for the patient if he wakes up on the respirator. She looks back at Kinney, who just nods encouragingly, confident that she'll do what he asks.

Making a decision, she gets her equipment ready, then cuts through the gauze bandage which is holding the tube in place. She switches off the respirator and takes a deep breath before she removes the tube smoothly, much more smoothly than she ever could if the patient was awake and panicking.

Justin gives an extended cough and she smiles at Kinney, who just nods his thanks. And then Justin opens his eyes and looks at her with the bluest eyes she has ever seen. Somehow she knew they'd be blue.

“You’re in a hospital,” she says reassuringly. “You’ll be just fine.”

Justin nods and closes his eyes again.

 

When Justin woke up from his first coma, he was surrounded by people who loved him and yet all he could think of was the one person he expected to see, but who wasn’t there. When he wakes from his second coma, the only one present is the one person he'd never have expected to be there, nor does he know how he feels about seeing him.

For a long while, he doesn’t say anything and just looks at Brian, whose designer clothes are covered by a hospital gown and whose face is obscured partially by a surgical mask. He can still see that the other man is impeccably, if casually, dressed and that he’s still the most beautiful man Justin has ever laid his eyes on.

Brian is looking at him, so he must be aware that he’s awake, but he doesn’t speak either.

Much as Justin tries, he cannot remember how he got here, so, with his head pounding, he asks the logical question: “Did I get bashed again?” As soon as he says the words, he wishes he could take them back because there’s a spike of intense pain in Brian’s eyes. They may not have spoken for almost three years now, but Justin would never want to hurt him that way, or any way at all. Whatever happened between them or didn’t happen, he’d never want to do that. He doesn’t hate Brian, doesn’t think he ever could, he just hates how he makes him feel.

Brian clears his throat a little. “You have meningitis.” His voice is a little rough, but his eyes have gone back to being expressionless, hiding his true self better than any surgical mask ever could.

Justin nods. He remembers the university now and a blinding headache and trying to reach the bathroom because he needed to be sick. He just hopes that he made it, because it would be embarrassing if he didn’t. Then another thought strikes him.

“Why are you here?”

“I have a meeting.”

“Not _New York_ here. _Here_ here.”

“Your mother called me.”

Oh shit! His mother! She’s on her honeymoon in Mexico. How did she even find out? And what, in heaven’s name, possessed her to call Brian, of all people? Justin is surprised that she even has his number because _he_ certainly doesn’t.

“She’s not coming, is she?” he asks, hoping against hope that she sent Brian as her envoy so that she can stay where she is and enjoy herself.

“She’ll be here tomorrow. It was the earliest flight she could get.”

Of course, his mother would never not turn up when he’s in trouble and if she can’t make it herself she’ll send someone she trusts. Strange how that’s now the one person she desperately wanted to keep away from him last time. And equally strange how that person is now here.

“So all I had to do was get Mom to call you and you would’ve come running?”

“Walking. No running involved at any point.” Brian doesn’t crack a smile, especially not when he adds: “And it wouldn’t have worked before this.”

Justin feels so weary he’s surprised he has the energy to feel so very hurt that the only way that Brian is willing to interact with him nowadays involves him being in a coma. He closes his eyes to go back to sleep, hoping that when he wakes up, the scenery will have changed as Debbie puts it, but almost immediately he’s disturbed by the bustle of several people entering the room. He opens his eyes again to see three guys in white coats.

It doesn’t take Justin long to work out that Brian already had a run-in with the head honcho. It’s obvious from the way they stare daggers at each other and exchange thinly veiled insults and then ignore each other. If they’d fucked, Brian would be unconcerned, so Justin assumes it’s because of him. He answers the doctor’s questions as best he can, but since he’s only just woken up and can remember what happened only in the vaguest terms, it’s not much.

Dr Anderson suggests that Brian leaves the room during the examination, but Justin just snorts mirthlessly at that. Brian will leave the room if he wants to and if he doesn’t, nothing either the staff or Justin could say will make any difference. Removing him under those circumstances would have to involve calling security. Brian doesn’t give any indication that he even heard the suggestion and Justin’s okay with that. There’s nothing Brian hasn’t seen before, physically or emotionally.

Anderson gives him a perfunctory examination and then declares that he’ll be moved to a different room in the evening, where he’ll have to stay another day or two before he can go home.

“He needs a private room,” Brian says evenly.

“I can’t afford a private room.”

“Yes, you can. You’re still covered by Kinnetik’s medical insurance.”

“How come?”

“You freelance for us, don’t you?” Brian says it as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.

Justin's been given occasional work over the last three years, more in the beginning than nowadays, but it’s always come through Cynthia and he was under the impression that Brian didn’t know about it. Ted would have known, but with him and Cynthia being mostly left to their own devices at the office, Justin has always believed that it was their own idea. How could he have thought otherwise when Brian cut him out of every other aspect of his life?

“I didn’t realize you knew,” he says and then feels stupid for saying it. It makes him feel like a stalker again, and he kind of was. It’s been his only connection to Brian for all this time and no matter how pathetic it made him feel, he couldn't let it go. He was worried that if he relinquished this last tenuous hold on him, Brian would disappear from his life altogether. Or disappear, period. And at the back of his mind, there was always the hope that Brian _did_ know and that he was equally unwilling or unable to release this last bond between them.

Brian just smirks as if he knows exactly what Justin’s thinking. He probably does. He always had this uncanny ability to see through people.

The doctor clears his throat to get them back on track. “So… a private room?” he asks to confirm and Justin thinks his whole demeanor has changed – sensing money, no doubt – and he likes the guy even less now. But thankfully Anderson and his sycophants leave quickly.

“Can I wear my own clothes?” Justin asks the nurse, who pulls a face.

“They’re not really in any state to be worn.”

Justin nods. He really needs to find out how much of an embarrassing scene he created at college.

“Could you get me some clothes from my place?” he asks Brian.

“Why don’t I just buy you some?”

“Because I want my own clothes.”

 

Brian registers the fact that he refuses to take a gift from him with a simple nod. It’s no more than he expected. Justin has always been fiercely independent and with the way things are between them at the moment, it’s a wonder that he hasn’t thrown Brian out yet.

“Why can’t you ask the boyfriend?”

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

Brian just nods again and tries to decide if it’s said in that slightly worried tone that Justin used to have when they first met. Every time someone mentioned anything remotely smacking of coupledom in those days, Justin would get that scared look in his eyes because he feared Brian’s reaction. But it just sounds weary, like he’s had to say it one too many times. Brian can’t pretend that he understands how Justin can live with the guy and still say that he’s not his boyfriend, especially when his own mother seems to think so. That’s something Brian would do – and did – but not Justin. Justin is all about love and romance, isn’t he?

Brian sighs. “Give me your address and I’ll swing by and pick you up some stuff when I’m done with my meeting.”

 

Justin tries to work out if Brian genuinely doesn’t know where he lives or if this is one of his ploys where he just pretends to be uninvolved. Before… before it all happened, he would have been cocksure about Brian pretending, but now he can no longer tell. Now, it’s entirely possible that Brian has finally removed himself to such a distance that he’s no longer keeping an eye on his friends in general and Justin in particular. Resignedly, he rattles off his address and closes his eyes to drift off into oblivion. Yes, a change of scenery would be a pleasant surprise when he wakes up. Or maybe a different life.

 

Brian watches Justin sleep for three hours until it’s time to go back to his hotel to get ready for his meeting.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

**PART  TWO**

Brian is bored with his meeting after fifteen minutes, but outwardly there’s no indication of it. He's always been good at not letting his feelings show and has perfected it over the last few years. He jokes and laughs and charms Paul Ashton of Guiltier Enterprises so much that he has to find a way to let him down after the meeting without endangering the contract that Ashton hasn’t yet signed. The words ‘my partner’s in hospital’ come more naturally to him now than when they were true years ago.

Ashton backs away from his insistent invasion of Brian’s personal space, joking that he didn’t take Brian for the faithful type and Brian says in a regretful tone that he isn’t but would consider it in bad taste to ‘cheat’ under these circumstances. In the taxi he wonders why he feels relieved that he _didn’t_ fuck the client.

Justin’s place is in a part of town that Brian wouldn’t have expected him to be able to afford. There’s even a doorman, who opens the door for him and directs him to the right apartment. When Brian gets to the third floor, the door to number 304 opens before he can knock and he almost collides with someone coming out.

“Hey,” the guy says with a bright smile. “Can you tell Owen I’ll give him a call?” He looks Brian up and down and his smile turns seductive. “Or I could call _you_ instead if you give me your number.” Leaving the door open, he squeezes past Brian, making as much body contact as he can before Brian steps back a little.

Brian gives him a non-committal smirk, more out of habit than any real interest, and watches the guy walk along the corridor backwards, still running his eyes appreciatively over Brian’s body before disappearing into the elevator. Shaking his head in amusement, Brian enters the apartment and shuts the door.

The place is big and airy. He can approve of the clean lines and all the leather and chrome, even though he can’t see much of Justin in it. It’s too clean, too tidy, but there are two large paintings on the wall that scream Justin from every brush stroke. One he has seen before, even tried to buy, but was told that it wasn’t for sale. This is the first time he’s seen it in person because he never went to Justin’s one and only showing in that tiny gallery last year. He steps closer, fascinated by the size and mournfulness of it, which is so much more pronounced than it appeared in the photographs.

Brian recognized himself in the broad strokes and abstract lines the first time he saw it, although the likeness isn’t obvious. However, it _is_ blatant in the second painting, one he’s never seen before. It’s a picture of himself, naked and stretched out on the dark blue sheets of his bed in the loft. Even just showing his back and his ass, he’s unmistakable, but he’s also gazing over his shoulder with a sultry look. Brian is amazed how much it captures how he sees himself but at the same time shows how Justin sees him – and by the sheer eroticism of it.

“Who the fuck are you?” says a voice behind him.

Brian turns slowly and is confronted by a guy who’s dressed in no more than a pair of sweatpants. He’s almost as tall as Brian and hot as hell. His dirty blond hair is shoulder length and his eyes are of an intense green. Brian thinks he’s just about as hot as he expected Justin’s boyfriend to be.

“Your trick said to tell you that he’ll call you,” he says, instead of answering the question.

“You’re Brian,” the guy says with some surprise, looking from the painting to the original. Then he adds in a lazy drawl, “If you’re looking for Justin, he’s not here.”

“I know he isn’t.”

“I’m Owen. Want some coffee? Or something else?” He grins and runs his eyes over Brian in a very deliberate fashion.

Brian would laugh at the familiar lines and behavior if he wasn’t so indignant over the guy’s lack of concern for Justin. “I’ve come to pick up some clothes for him.”

“What the hell for?”

“He’s in hospital.”

“Wanna tell me what the fuck’s going on?”

“Justin has meningitis. He’s been in hospital since yesterday. I take it, not coming home for the night is a common occurrence?”

“Not really, but he has his own room. I’m not his keeper. How is he?”

“Alive. Wanna point me in the direction of his room?”

Owen gives a nod towards one of the doors and Brian walks into the indicated room, which is _completely_ like Justin, chaotic, cluttered and smelling of paint. This is obviously the room Justin paints in nowadays. It’s full of canvases, paints, brushes and an omnipresent smell of turpentine. Brian looks over some of the paintings stacked against the walls. The room is big and he can well imagine Justin having had a spontaneous orgasm over the lighting. Then he wonders when he started looking at rooms with Justin’s eyes.

“How exactly do you fit into the picture?” Owen has followed him from the living area and is leaning against the door jamb with his arms folded. Brian gives him the barest of looks, just long enough to acknowledge to himself how fuckable the guy is. It’s not just that Owen is good-looking, he has that pervasive sexiness designed to make guys want to jump his bones that Brian himself had down pat by the end of his teens.

“His mother called me.”

“Ah, good old Jen! Yeah, she would bite off her tongue before she’d tell _me_ anything.”

So Jennifer has gone back to hating whomever Justin is with. But for once Brian approves. Something about this guy gets his back up and he hopes that it’s merely about the fact that Owen doesn’t seem overly concerned that the guy he’s fucking has a potentially life-threatening illness.

Brian opens the wardrobe and finds the same ugly duffle bag at the bottom that Justin always used to schlep any stuff too big for his messenger bag to and from the loft. Setting it on the bed, he starts filling it with casual clothes, which isn’t very difficult since they make up the majority of the items in the wardrobe. He does spot a nice charcoal Dolce and Gabbana suit that meets his approval, although it would be completely useless under the circumstances.

“How long is he going to be in hospital for?” Owen asks, eyeing the growing amount of clothes Brian’s folding neatly into the bag with a frown. It makes Brian stop and wonder what he’s doing. He notices with some amusement that it _does_ look like he’s packing most of Justin’s stuff. He looks at his replacement – for the  first time without checking him out or dismissing him. If this is the guy Justin’s in love with, then maybe he deserves to be treated with a little more consideration for Justin’s sake.

“The doctor said a few days, so he could be home before the weekend. He’s being moved to his own room this evening.” He hesitates for a moment, then forces himself to add, “You should visit him. I’m sure he’d like that.”

Owen has moved into a more alert stance and now takes a step back. “Home? By the _weekend_? Are they _crazy_? Do you have any idea how contagious meningitis is? He can’t come here for a couple of weeks. At least.”

Brian stares at the guy, trying not to hate him to the point of wanting to punch him, trying not to be disappointed in Justin for being with such an ass, trying not to think, _'how the fuck am I going to tell Justin?'_ and failing miserably on all counts. He smiles a sickly-sweet, false smile.

“So, I take it you won’t be visiting your beloved in the hospital then?”

Owen switches to belligerence immediately. “Why do _you_ care? Aren’t you the guy who disappeared from his life from one day to the next and hasn’t spoken to him in three years?”

“Would you like me to give him a message?” Brian zips up the bag and ignores the accusation. He’s not discussing this, not with this guy, nor with anybody else.

“Tell him to call me when he can.”

“Will do,” Brian mutters and makes his way past the guy to the door. There, he stops and can’t resist asking, “Does he know you’re fucking around on him?” He’s well aware of the hypocrisy of that question, but it irks him somehow.

Owen grins insolently. “Who I fuck is none of your business – or his.”

Brian snorts without humor. This is just too fucking familiar. “I’ll give him your love then,” he says and pulls the door shut behind himself.

 

Brian goes back to the hotel to shower and change and call Cynthia to discuss his lunch meeting with Ashton. Cynthia is a little too focused on work and getting through the minutiae of the meeting and he doesn’t need to think very hard about the reason for that.

“I don’t appreciate you passing on my number to Jennifer Taylor, Cynthia.”

 _“She was_ desperate _, Brian.”_

“And so will you be if you do that again.”

_“What are you gonna do, block my number, too? How are you gonna run the office?”_

“Cynthia,” he says warningly.

_“The woman needed help. And you need…”_

“Need what…?”

There’s a long pause. “ _Brian..._ ” she says finally and nothing else. He hates how softly she speaks to him nowadays.

“Your job’s to make my office run smoothly. Don’t tell me how to live my life!” He snaps the phone shut and throws it on the bed. _Damn all women!_ Deciding not to think about it any further, he makes his way into the shower. He knows that he needs Cynthia, and in general he likes her just fine because at the moment she’s one of the more stable parts of his life. However much it… makes him nervous to have anything that is stable, he can bear it because she has always been professional and has become even more so in recent years. Professional he can cope with.

When he arrives back at the hospital, Justin has already been moved to a private room. Brian notices with satisfaction that it’s large and comfortable and almost luxurious, as hospital rooms go, with an en-suite bathroom, a TV and even a DVD player. But all he does is dump the duffle bag by the bed and say, “I notice your fashion sense hasn’t improved.”

 

Justin recognizes Brian’s pretend grumpy remark as the cover-up for his unease that it really is. Since he woke up properly in the afternoon and realized that Brian having been at his bedside was not some crazy dream, Justin's been cursing himself for asking him to collect his clothes. He should have taken Brian up on his offer to buy new ones or waited until his mother arrives – anything to keep Owen and Brian apart. Although his mother and Owen together is only marginally more desirable.

It doesn’t take a psychologist to predict that Brian and Owen will hate each other, nor does it take one to work out that the reason for that is because they’re so similar. He doesn’t want Brian to think that he’s been replaced by a clone, although physically there are no similarities. That’s one point Justin doesn’t have to worry about. No one will look at Owen and think Justin chose him for his resemblance to Brian – although they might when they get to know him. Only, Justin knows that they couldn’t be more different in any other respect, too.

“You found it alright, then,” is all he says because he won’t be drawn into a discussion about his clothes and he’s dying to know what happened at the apartment.

“Even I can give an address to a cab driver and arrive at the right destination,” Brian snarks, appearing to make himself comfortable in one of the chairs with his usual grace. But to Justin he doesn’t look particularly comfortable and he can marvel at how well he can still read Brian’s body language. He wonders if anybody else could ever read him quite as well. Maybe Michael could have at some stage, if he hadn’t been too blinded by his adoration to ever consider taking Brian at anything other than face value.

“How did your meeting go?”

“Fine.”

Great. Brian is playing _'let’s make Justin work for any little scrap of information'_ , a game he remembers all too well from his pre-Ethan time with Brian. But he doesn’t feel like playing games anymore, especially not with Brian. “What did Owen say?”

 

Brian has been dreading and looking forward to this conversation in equal measures. Part of him wants to get up and leave and never come back. What does it matter to him what Justin does and who he’s doing it with? Brian's been so careful not to pay attention for so long that he didn’t even know where Justin lives now, nor whom he lives with. Because it has to be that way. And in less than 24 hours, he knows more about Justin’s life again than he wants. And now that he knows, he can no longer ignore it.

But there’s another part of him, which relishes this conversation, the part that’s still hurt by Justin somehow, however unfair that may be, the part that wants him to be the best homosexual he can possibly be, the same part that wants to throttle him for his choice of boyfriend. He’s torn between wanting to inflict pain for being disappointed and, yes, worried, and wanting to somehow phrase it in a way that will help Justin keep up this charade that is his life. But how do you paraphrase _'your boyfriend didn’t even worry about you not coming home last night because he was too busy tricking’_ into a sentence that won’t make Justin explode into righteous anger? Hell, it makes _him_ want to explode into righteous anger.

“He didn’t say much.”

 

Justin looks at him, wanting to ask about a hundred questions. He needs to know what happened between those two, so he can prepare himself for the backlash from both of them. Why Brian should care is beyond him. Brian hasn’t bothered with him for so long and so thoroughly that Justin has started to really believe that he no longer cares. But Brian has always had this habit of wanting to make people face the truth as he sees it and trying to sort out their lives whether it is wanted – or even warranted – or not. It’s entirely possible that he’ll voice an opinion or even interfere simply because he doesn’t approve.

And Owen will be in a snit for ages just because Brian turned up. However much Owen says that he doesn’t care what Justin does with other guys, when it comes to Brian, that no longer holds. Which is amazing for a guy who allows two large paintings of Justin’s ex-lover to hang in his own living room and who likes to point them out to whomever is interested. But that’s just his way of demonstrating how little he cares. Justin doesn’t think too much about it. It’s entirely possible that Owen genuinely doesn’t care. Because they’re so similar in their behavior, Justin tends to imbue Owen with feelings that he knows Brian would have and he's never really bothered to find out if that’s justified. In a way, he hopes it isn’t. He wouldn’t want Owen to get hurt.

“What was he doing?” he tries again.

There’s a long pause and Brian just looks at him. Justin can’t remember any other occasion when Brian was stuck for words and he can’t imagine why he would be now. Then he hits on the answer and he can’t decide whether he’s angry or amused by Brian’s reluctance. What right does he have to judge? Justin decides to go with laughter.

“He was tricking?”

Brian looks surprised. Did he really think that Justin doesn’t know about that? Or that he’s still the love-struck fool who’s hurt by his non-boyfriend’s escapades, like he was with Brian, or even oblivious, like he was with Ethan? That’s kind of insulting. He’s twenty-six now and, if nothing else, Brian should give him some credit.

“Owen tricks all the time. It’s no big deal.” Or no deal at all because Justin doesn’t care. It’s not the pretend not-caring that he projected when he was with Brian, hiding his hurt behind a façade of nonchalance, no, this time his indifference is genuine. The only times it bothers him is when he wants to fuck and Owen is tricking because on those occasions it means that Justin has to go out to get his needs met somewhere else and that can be tedious. He doesn’t particularly like going to clubs anymore. Justin and Owen have only one rule: all their tricking takes place away from home or in their respective rooms and the sole reason for that is that the large, flat-screen TV is in the living room.

 

Brian is quiet for a long time. He can’t decide how this information makes him feel. On the one hand, he’s relieved that Justin’s not hurt, on the other, he can’t believe that he would put up with that sort of behavior – again. It’s as if Justin hasn’t progressed at all in the years they’ve been apart. Brian would have thought that he'd have found more self-respect in that time. How can he still be with people who don’t give him what he needs?

Brian has tried very hard not to think about Justin in the last three years, or about anyone at all really. But when he did think about him during that time – usually because he was too intoxicated for his usual discipline – he always imagined him in a cozy, monogamous relationship with some breeder impersonator. Why would Justin do this to himself again?

For a while, Brian fights his anger, telling himself that it’s none of his business, but in the end he can’t help saying, “So now it’s suddenly all right for your partner to trick?” in a voice that doesn’t sound quite as tense as he feared.

“Owen’s not my partner or my boyfriend. We’re just living together. I pay rent and utilities and make my own food.”

“So you two aren’t fucking?”

“Of course, we’re fucking.”

“And you’re overlooking that he’s tricking? That he’s tricking so much that he didn’t even notice that you weren’t home?” Brian doesn’t like how bitter he sounds – at all.

 

“I trick as much as he d…” Justin stops in mid-sentence when he realizes why they’re having this conversation. “You’re jealous,” he murmurs more to himself than Brian, the surprise overriding the habitual censorship of his words around the other man.

“Bullshit. It’s just strange how I had to jump through endless hoops for you, while this guy gets a free pass.”

Justin is quiet for a long time, trying to digest this unexpected revelation. It doesn’t tally with the reality of his life since he last saw Brian.

After Brian disappeared for two months three years ago and they’d gone as far as contacting the police, Cynthia called one day to say that Brian had phoned her. She was the only one Brian had contacted, but she claimed not to know much about anything other than that he was coming back to work. Justin, who‘d been living in limbo at the loft, waited for his return, veering between relief and anger. But nobody even knew that Brian was back in Pittsburgh until he visited Debbie a few days later, told her that he needed more time and said very little else. Where he’d been or what he was planning remained a mystery. After a few days, Justin returned to New York in a fit of anger, fueled by disappointment and despair. But it didn’t last long. He tried to contact Brian. It was a difficult undertaking because, apart from not answering his calls, emails and messages, it was also simply impossible to find him.

One day, on his frequent visits to Pittsburgh, Justin arrived at the loft to find it no longer empty but rented out and there was no forwarding address. For a while, he suspected anyone and everyone of withholding information from him on Brian’s orders, but it soon became clear that he wasn’t the only one in the dark. Michael was equally frantic in his attempts to find out what was going on.

Then Michael called about a month after Brian came back to say that he’d heard from him, but wasn’t allowed to give Justin Brian’s new number or tell him anything. He said Brian was okay but wanted to be left alone. Naturally, Justin eventually wormed the new number out of Michael, but Brian never answered any of Justin’s numerous calls and eventually Michael called again to say that Brian had changed his number again and that Michael could no longer talk to Justin about Brian for fear of losing him altogether. Justin forgave Michael for that – mainly because of how hard he was crying when he said it.

So Justin had assumed that Brian was genuine when he said that he never wanted to see Justin again – not that he’d said it in so many words. For a long time, he held on to the belief that Brian would come round eventually, that, when he’d worked through it all, he’d come for Justin and either pretend nothing had happened or tell him to suck it up and deal. By that time, Justin was quite willing to do that. Who wouldn’t under the circumstances? But eventually, after months of waiting, he gave up hope. Brian seemed to have renewed his contact with most other people, but Justin was still out in the cold. He could no longer pretend that he hadn’t been singled out or that it wasn’t permanent.

All he could do was finally admit to himself that Brian had stopped loving him. And that was the hardest part. It was easier to live with not seeing him than to live with not being loved by him. Justin had lived in Brian’s love for so long that he didn’t know any longer how to live without it. It was the darkest time of his life. But in the end, he picked himself up and carried on regardless, because he had to, because life didn’t just stop when Brian stopped loving him. It just became cold and lonely.

And now here he is again with Brian taking care of him and showing his concern in his own inimitable style – by grousing at him. Justin can’t yet decide whether he likes it or not. On the one hand, it scares the hell out of him. What if Brian disappears again? Justin could never go through that again. On the other hand, Brian caring is familiar and warm. Justin smiles a soft smile.

“That’s because you were important.” _Because I loved you, because my world revolved around you, because I wanted to be everything to you._ All of those would be true as well, but for now, it’ll do.

Brian snorts derisively, murmurs something about _'just my fucking luck_ ’ and goes to the window to check out the view. Justin watches him standing there, his lean form, his long neck, the classic profile and knows that if Brian doesn’t disappear from his life again, he will never have the strength to let him go. Great! Three years of struggling to cope down the drain.

“Could you get me some decent coffee?” he asks, just to test the waters.

Brian glares at him. “I’m not your fucking servant, you know.” But despite his grumbling, he makes his way to the door and Justin knows he’ll return with a non-fat double shot cappuccino with added vanilla from Starbucks. And he also knows that everything is fucked up again. 

 

*

 

Thomas Calhoun is trailing his wife of ten days down the hospital corridors. He hasn’t thought much beyond the fact that she’s incredibly upset and he wants to comfort her in any way that he can. Returning early from his honeymoon hasn’t bothered him under the circumstances. More than anything, he wants Jennifer to be happy and the last three days have been the most upset he’s seen her in the eighteen months he’s known her. There was never any question of trying to persuade her to stay on in Mexico, even after she was told that Justin had woken up and was as well as could be expected. He wouldn’t have stayed either if this had happened to one of his children.

Thomas has met Justin a few times and he likes him. Justin is bright and witty and has a wicked sense of humor. He can also disappear into a cloud of misery that makes him uncommunicative and drives his mother to distraction with worry. His homosexuality isn’t an issue for Thomas although he’s aware that his own son, Nathan, is struggling with it at times. He thinks it’ll do Nathan good to have to confront his unacknowledged homophobic tendencies and so far, there seems to be a gradual convergence between the two young men, who are roughly the same age.

Thomas’s daughter is another matter. Felicity is a year older than Molly and has taken to Justin like any teenage girl would to a good-looking young man, who’s also making an effort to get to know her. Thomas suspects that she has a severe crush, disregarding the fact that Justin is not only gay but also her stepbrother now. Molly, on the other hand, seems to dislike everyone in equal measures at the moment, Thomas, his children, and even her own mother and brother. Whenever she doesn’t get her own way, she threatens to move in with Craig, who’s giving no sign of accommodating his daughter, as he’s having his hands full with a three-month-old baby.

Thomas feels pretty secure that Justin likes him well enough, although he’s aware that it may be more relief to be rid of his predecessor than personal affection. Either way, he’s grateful for Justin’s support of his mother’s marriage and his occasional admonishment of his sister for her behavior. Of all the people in this new family situation, Justin seems to have the most influence on Molly.

When the hospital phoned and it turned out very soon afterwards that there would be no way of getting back here quickly, he listened with growing exasperation to Jennifer’s efforts to even get hold of a phone number for Justin’s ex-boyfriend. Thomas has never met the current boyfriend and he can’t understand why it was the _ex_ Jennifer was pinning her hopes on. In the end, the guy’s secretary was the only one who was willing to brave his wrath by handing out one measly phone number.

Thomas expected the guy, Brian, to shut Jennifer down quickly, but apparently he went to the hospital straight away and then phoned an hour later to say everything was stable. He called again the next day to say that Justin was awake and Jennifer’s tearful relief made Thomas forgive Brian for making it so difficult for her to get this far.

After the phone call, Jennifer sat outside their chalet and spoke about Justin in great detail for the first time. She talked about bullying and bashings, getting disowned and arrested by his own father, and bombings. He’d known about these things only vaguely and suddenly understood why Justin will always be the one person she worries about the most.

She also spoke about Brian, whose presence in Justin’s life seems to be equally all-consuming and devastating as his absence. And yet there’s no hint of resentment in her voice when she speaks either of Brian or to him, only a lot of affection and much sadness. He gets an inkling of why that is so when there’s a driver waiting for them as they arrive at the airport to take them to the hospital and their luggage to a nearby hotel. Now he’s quite curious to meet this Brian.

 

Jennifer cannot believe that she’s here again, looking for her son, who’s been admitted to hospital with a life-threatening condition. Her knees threaten to buckle with relief as she steps into the room to see Justin sitting up in bed, watching the news. He looks tired and drawn, but he’s awake and alive and nothing else matters. He has barely time to switch the TV off when he sees her, before she’s engulfed him in a tight hug that she doesn’t want to end.

“I’m all right, Mom. I’m all right. You shouldn’t have come.”

She draws back and just looks at him. He grins impishly. “Okay, okay, you’re my mother. You’re allowed to worry. I’m sorry I ruined your honeymoon.”

 

“Don’t be stupid,” Thomas says as he enters the room and Justin gives him a smile. “We were getting bored anyway.” That earns him a glare from his wife and he smiles softly at her. He knows he’ll never get bored with Jennifer. This is the woman he wants to spend the rest of his life with. There’s never been a single moment since he’s known her that he hasn’t loved and wanted her. And he suspects that will never change. What he felt for his first wife, God rest her soul, doesn’t even compare.

 

Jennifer’s very much aware that she hit the jackpot when she met Thomas. Their attraction was immediate and hasn’t dimmed in the slightest since then. She smiles back at him and sees Justin avert his eyes. Sometimes, he finds it hard to witness their happiness and she knows that it’s because he remembers what it feels like. This is her biggest grievance with Owen Spencer, that he doesn’t make her son happy, that the sadness surrounding him hasn’t lessened in the slightest.

She looks at Justin and smiles. “Where’s Brian?”

Then she has to laugh because her son’s voice is a perfect imitation of Debbie’s world-weary tone when he says, “ _Eeevery_ body’s looking for Brian.”

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

**PART  THREE**

Brian is a no-show for two and a half days. By that time, Justin is heartily sick of his mother clucking around him. Other than slight nausea from having to take oral antibiotics and a headache that seems to be numbed rather than suppressed by the industrial-strength painkillers he’s taking, he feels fine. Of course, he sleeps mostly, each time looking for Brian when he wakes up.

Justin knew this would happen, knew that Brian would disappear again after he made sure that Justin’s taken care of. He wonders if he’s changed his phone number yet. Because that’s bound to happen next. No way will Brian allow Justin to be able to contact him – not that he ever answered any of his calls when Justin did get hold of his number before.

Justin won’t call this time. There’s no way he can put himself through that again. He’ll just resign himself to the fact that nothing’s changed, that seeing Brian again was just an unexpected brief interlude due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control and that Brian’s feelings and attitude haven’t changed. He must have been mistaken when he thought Brian was jealous of Owen. And he won’t torture himself again with wondering why – what he did or didn’t do that made Brian stop loving him.

Thomas hasn’t visited after the first time. He’s gone on a sightseeing tour of New York, but Justin knows that Thomas needs to get back to Pittsburgh, which means that his mother should go as well, only, she won’t leave before Justin is released from the hospital.

That day finally arrives on Friday and it’s none too soon. Molly has already called five times to complain that she wants to ‘escape from the madhouse’ that is Craig’s home nowadays. Justin can’t help feeling smug that not only is Craig being driven to distraction by a colicky baby, but also that Molly has finally lost any leverage over his mother, because the one thing Molly will never do now, is move in with Craig.

Justin knows that his mother wants to go home and rescue her daughter from the clutches of her evil ex and he himself wants to go home to escape from his mother. She’s folding his clothes into the duffle bag, obviously as bemused as he is by the sheer amount that Brian saw fit to bring – did he anticipate Justin’s stay to stretch for weeks? – when the object of his musings waltzes into the room.

Brian is flawlessly dressed in Armani, with not a hair out of place that isn’t due to a deliberate mussing. He gives Justin a nod and a long examining look and then turns to greet Jennifer, who’s staring at him like he’s a ghost, which is basically what he was during the last three years. Then she moves forward and before Brian can escape, she’s folded him into a hug, which, after an initial hesitation, he accepts graciously by bending down a little and hugging her back.

“Thank you, Brian,” she says simply.

“No problem, Mother Taylor.”

She withdraws and smiles at him. “It’s Calhoun now.”

“Yes, you mentioned it. Congratulations. Where is the poor schmuck?”

“At the hotel, packing our stuff. We really need to get back home. Could you please tell Justin to come home with us? He’s supposed to recuperate for a month and he insists on going back to his apartment.”

Brian turns to Justin and deadpans, “You should go home with them.”

“I _am_ going home,” Justin says and adds a little cruelly, “The apartment _is_ home.” It’s not entirely true. It’s more of a place to stay, but he’s pissed off at Brian for disappearing and re-appearing at will and because he’s presenting a united front with his mother as if Justin were a child.       

“No, really, you should go with your mother,” Brian says again and Justin is struck by something in his voice that sounds out of place. Brian really wants this, but, of course, it might just be that he’ll then be absolved from the responsibility which he‘s somehow assumed for whatever reason.

“No, thanks.”

Brian takes a seat and crosses his long legs slowly, wiping imaginary lint from his pants. He puts his tongue in his cheek and it’s so heart-breakingly familiar that Justin has to turn away and decides to end this by simply leaving. He has all his papers ready, so all he has to do is pick up his duffle bag and leave. He won't be told what to do by Brian Kinney, of all people.

“You can’t go home,” Brian says finally and he holds Justin’s eyes when they turn back to him with a glare. Before Justin can tell him that he can and he will, Brian adds, “Owen said not to go there for a couple of weeks or so. I think he’s a mysophobe.” It’s delivered in that slightly mocking voice that he uses when he tells someone an unwelcome truth.

“What?!” Jennifer and Justin say at the same time, both of them equally incensed.

“You can’t go home. Owen said not to go there for a couple of weeks or so. I think he’s a mysophobe,” Brian repeats slowly and tonelessly.

“How dare he?” Jennifer exclaims, directing her remark at Brian as if this is his fault.

Brian shrugs. “He owns the apartment, I believe,” he adds in the same deadpan voice he used before.

Justin only half-listens to his mother’s tirade about Owen. He’s not particularly surprised. He’s already worked out that Owen didn’t visit him because of his fear of illness. Mysophobe indeed – and only Brian would use that term over the more common germophobe. Justin’s not particularly disappointed in Owen either, only, now he has nowhere to go.

“That settles it then,” his mother says. “You’re coming home with us.”

“No.”

“Sweetheart… where’re you going to go?”

“I’ll find somewhere.”

His mother starts another lecture on the advantages of staying at her new house, but Justin really doesn’t fancy being sulked at by Molly and adored by Felicity, not to mention the couch he would be sleeping on because the guest room is not furnished yet. In his head, he runs through a list of his friends in New York, but they’re more like acquaintances, and he’s not close enough to anyone that he could possibly impose a visit on them for a couple of weeks. In the meantime, he stubbornly shakes his head at any and all of Jennifer’s suggestions.

Finally, the matter is settled when Brian gets up and takes Justin’s duffle bag. “You can come with me for now,” he says. “Say goodbye to your mother.”

Both of them stare at Brian as he makes his way to the door. Justin feels a wave of warmth flood his body when he remembers a similar situation, where a few simple words from Brian provided him with an unexpected shelter from his mother and, more importantly, his father. At the very least, this will get his mother off his back for now, because Justin’s simply too tired to argue the point with her any further. He can always go his own way if he doesn’t like where Brian’s taking him.

So, after the briefest of hesitations, Justin kisses his mother’s cheek, tells her that he’ll call her and hurries after Brian, who has left with a simple raise of his hand as a goodbye to Jennifer. Justin hopes that they’ll be at least in the elevator, if not outside the hospital, by the time she has recovered from her surprise enough to object.

It becomes apparent very quickly that he’s overestimated his strength. He’s tired when he’s standing next to Brian in the elevator, exhausted by the time they reach the hotel after a short cab ride and he all but passes out on the large bed when they get into the room.

 

Brian looks at Justin, who’s lying slightly crooked on the bed, for a long time. He has checked up on Justin’s condition over the past few days, even though it meant that he had to go to the hospital and hunt down Dr Anderson because the bastard wouldn’t give him any information over the phone. He’s been warned that the patient would tire very quickly, so he’s not worried. Finally, Brian moves forward and removes Justin’s shoes and socks and his pants, before pulling on the duvet until he’s manipulated Justin into a position under it. Then he leaves the hotel room.

When he returns half an hour later, Justin has somehow buried himself under the covers in his very own and very familiar cocoon but is still fast asleep. Brian sets down the bag with Justin’s medication, which he got from the nearby pharmacy, and walks out onto the balcony to have a smoke.

He looks over the cityscape of the place that embodied all his dreams when he was younger and nowadays doesn’t hold any attraction for him any longer. Theodore keeps hinting heavily that now is the time to expand, even pressures Brian at times, in that soft approach that’s always just one step removed from retracting his statements in a heartbeat. Brian thinks it would mean five to eight years of commitment and hard work, which he feels incapable of supplying.

After a minute or so, he turns around and, leaning against the balcony railing, he watches the man in his room. Nobody has slept in his bed since the last time Justin did. He’s very careful about that nowadays, mainly because it irritates him when other people sleep while he doesn’t. With Justin he doesn’t mind. He's always enjoyed watching Justin sleep, from the very beginning, and it often surprises him when he considers how blind he was to the small – and not so small – hints that this boy, as he was in those days, was different.

He knows that going to the hospital when Jennifer called was a mistake, albeit not one he could have avoided. As soon as he answered the phone, it was already too late. But he thinks that maybe, just maybe, this is the sign he’s been waiting for.

Brian lost his belief in God when he realized that he’s gay. At first, it was rebellion – if he was going to hell anyway, he might as well sin on a grand scale. He dared God to strike him down for it. When that didn’t happen, it was only a small step to realizing that there never was a God in the first place.

But he’s come to the belief that some things, if not all, happen for a reason and that you can’t escape your fate or what-the-fuck-ever you want to call it. You can make your own luck with determination and perseverance, but some things are meant to happen and in the end, you always have to pay for all your mistakes and all your misdeeds. You get what you deserve. He believes this because if it isn’t true, then the sheer randomness of life would blow his mind.

At ten o’clock, Brian wakes Justin up to feed him a snack and his medicine. He hands him the remote control for the TV and busies himself with his laptop, despite feeling Justin’s eyes on him. When he becomes aware of a soft snoring, he covers Justin up again and switches the TV back off. After he’s shut down the computer, he switches off all the lights and sits in the armchair by the open balcony door, smoking, and allowing himself an indulgence for once. There can’t really be any harm in watching Justin sleep, as long as Justin doesn’t find out. In the early hours of the morning, Brian takes off all his clothes and joins the other man in the bed, ensuring that there’s ample space between their bodies.

 

*

 

Brian awakes with a slight start, which is normal for him nowadays. He keeps his eyes closed for a while, trying to will his body back to sleep like he always does, even knowing that it’s pointless. It never works. When he finally opens his eyes, he’s looking straight into Justin’s, over an expanse of space that seems much wider than it ever was, even in their earliest days. Then, he often woke up to find Justin staring at him with longing, yet not daring to bridge the gap for fear of getting rejected. If the boy had only known how many times Brian wished even in those days that he would, so Brian could have him close without appearing to initiate it.

They look at each other until Brian averts his eyes to check the clock. As he thought, he’s only been asleep for three hours. It’s just starting to get light.

“Why am I here?” Justin asks quietly.

Brian looks back at him. “Because you have nowhere else to go.”

“You’re full of shit, you know that?”

Brian shrugs, unconcerned. When he was younger he always pretended that he didn’t care about what other people thought of him, but that was just part of his carefully crafted image. Now it’s actually true. For the most part anyway. He has learned to ignore any and all accusations.

“Do you want to fuck me?” For the first time ever, that sentence comes out of Justin’s mouth without the slightest hint of seduction in his voice or in his eyes. He’s simply asking for clarification.

“Do you want me to fuck you?” Brian asks in the same vein. Not that he would, under the circumstances, but he no longer knows the answer, which is a strange position to be in for him, especially with Justin.

 

Justin looks at him for a long time, considering the question carefully. He does want Brian to fuck him, he always did and probably always will, but not like this and he’s a little angry with himself for even wanting it.

“Since you don’t answer my questions, I won’t answer yours either.”

Brian nods. “Suit yourself.” He swings his legs out of the bed and walks naked into the bathroom.

Justin follows him with his eyes until he disappears into the shower, leaving the bathroom door open. He thinks that Brian is the only person he’s ever met who does that. When Justin started staying over at the loft in the very beginning, this was the hardest part to get used to. His suburban upbringing rebelled against this one point with all its might. Brian told him that it was stupid to close the door to take a piss when you considered what they did with each other. Now Justin judges everyone by how much modesty he requires from them. A bit like the toothbrush test – you know you love someone if you would happily lend them your toothbrush. Daphne read that in some women’s magazine once. So far, Justin hasn’t come across anyone he would comfortably allow an open bathroom door or the use of his toothbrush. Only Brian.

All in all, they’ve only spent about six waking hours together so far and already Brian has his usual effect of him: confusion and hurt. Brian’s doing the familiar ambiguous routine, acting like he cares but telling Justin that he doesn’t and Justin doesn’t think he’s strong enough for Brian any longer. He’s not strong enough to fight for him again, or rather to fight Brian himself, and he’s not strong enough to let him go. Either way, this latest encounter might just break him.

Just before Justin drops off to sleep again, he wonders why Brian’s taking a shower at five o’clock in the morning.   

_*_

At eight, Brian wakes him with breakfast and more medication. Justin remembers a time when he would have thought it cute that Brian gives him breakfast in bed, even if it has been supplied by room service. He feels a little more awake now, so he sits up in bed afterwards and watches Brian on his laptop. Sometimes he wishes that Brian would age and turn ugly, have plenty of wrinkles and receding hair or maybe get fat. But he knows that’s never going to happen. Brian will be just as beautiful at seventy as he is now or as he was when they met. And even if he did turn ugly, it wouldn’t change Justin’s feelings for him.

He knows that now, knows that no matter what happens, no matter what Brian does and no matter how much time passes, he will always love Brian. He wouldn’t mind it so much if it didn’t mean that he’ll be alone for the rest of his life. It’s not as if he hasn’t tried. There’ve been tricks and boyfriends, drugs and alcohol, meditation and exercise. Nothing works.

“How long are you in town for?”

“About a week.” Brian doesn’t look up from his work.

“Where do you live nowadays?”

Now Brian turns around and gives him a look that says ‘nice try’.

“I don’t mean your address. It would be enough if you told me which fucking city you live in.” Justin meant it to come out angrily, but it sounds rather despondent to his ears.

Brian’s expression grows a little softer before he trains his eyes back on his work. “I don’t live anywhere.”

“That’s funny. You don’t look like a vagrant to me.”

“I prefer ‘itinerant’.”

Justin scoffs at that and gives up. If Brian doesn’t want to tell him, then he won’t tell him. Nobody tells him anything. He’s tried so many times to worm information about Brian out of the rest of the family in Pittsburgh, that he’s no longer sure whether they’re actually withholding information from him or simply don’t know themselves. He tried Ted as well, but Ted always says that he can’t say anything for fear of losing his job. There have been occasions when Ted has simply hung up on Justin or left the premises when he got cornered.

Justin goes to have a shower, leaving the door wide open on purpose, hoping that Brian will find it just as distracting as Justin did this morning. He’s probably wasting his time because Brian just doesn’t care enough. When Justin comes back out of the bathroom, the sheets have been changed and he crawls back into bed exhausted enough to drop off to sleep again almost immediately.

 

And so begins an endless round of sleeping and eating and swallowing pills according to Brian’s schedule. Sometimes Justin wakes up to find himself alone in the room and sometimes Brian’s in bed with him, always on the far side of it, with no hint of wanting to come any closer despite being naked.

Justin’s waking periods are getting longer and he passes them with watching TV – loudly when Brian is trying to work and on almost mute when Brian’s not there because he’s not taking anything in anyway. His passive-aggressive behavior only serves to make him dislike himself, knowing that he’s just angling for a reaction that doesn’t come. He looks half-heartedly through the magazines and books that Brian supplies, without reading a single word. It’s like he’s back to the way he was when he was seventeen and Brian was all he could think about. The man has soaked into every pore of his being again.

Justin knows he has to get out of here. As the days go on, he and Brian start talking a little. It’s inevitable but awkward and oddly impersonal, mainly about current events and TV shows and a bit about Justin’s studies and work. Whenever they touch on anything personal, Brian clamps down in his inimitable style, turning snarky and sarcastic. It suits Justin just fine. At least this way he cannot delude himself that they're getting closer. Hope has always been his biggest foe. It’s obvious that Brian is just performing a duty that he has set himself, like he would do for any of his friends – if he still has any.

 

Brian goes out every day to meetings, but the rest of the time he spends in his hotel room. He doesn’t have an office space in New York and this is what he does, working from his suite, on the computer and the phone, or videoconferencing.

Justin’s presence doesn’t alter his work schedule in any way. Brian has no qualms talking about confidential issues whether Justin is awake or appears to be sleeping. Most of the time, Justin doesn't seem to be paying attention anyway, even during his waking moments, which are getting more frequent. Nevertheless, Brian feels watched in that subtle way that he remembers from the time when Justin was unsure of his place in Brian’s life – if there ever was such a time.

At night, Brian finds himself on dangerous ground without quite understanding how it happened. It started on the second night, when he thought that maybe he could indulge himself for ten minutes before he’d drop off to what little sleep he gets nowadays. He carefully moved as close to Justin as he could without touching him, so he could feel his warmth and smell his familiar scent. Then he moved back to his side of the bed and slept.

But Brian finds himself going to bed earlier and earlier, so that ten minutes stretch to more than an hour after only four days. It gets harder and harder not to touch as well. He wonders if Justin’s question about fucking him was in reality an offer and as much as he tries to shut down that thought, his mind and his body have other ideas. On two occasions Brian has to go into the bathroom to jerk off, as he does every morning and every night in the shower.

During the day he’s reluctant to leave, telling himself that it’s because Justin is still weak and requires care. Jennifer would have his remaining ball if Brian let something happen to her precious boy on his watch. When he returns, it’s just like it used to be at the loft, complete with his efforts to suppress the feelings of comfort Justin’s presence evokes. Only, his proven and tested method of fighting those feelings with a fuck is no longer available to him.

Brian knows he has to get out of here before he caves and tries to seduce Justin. When Justin is asleep in the evenings and Brian’s sitting by the open balcony door, smoking, he ponders if he would attempt it if he was sure of success. But Justin’s just about the only person who would have the strength to reject him if that’s what he decides he should do. Of course, if Justin doesn’t reject him, Brian will have destroyed everything he has achieved over the last three years.

“I have my last meeting tomorrow, so I’ll be leaving on Saturday,” Brian says on Thursday when they're having dinner. Justin's been getting dressed for the last two days although he still sleeps in the afternoons.

Justin’s head comes up sharply to look at him.

“You can stay for as long as you like. The room’s paid for. Just let Ted know when you find somewhere to stay. Take your time,” Brian adds.

“Don’t worry. If you go, I’ll go.”

Brian looks at him, not liking where this is going. “What do you mean?”

“If you have to leave, I’ll go home,” Justin says, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“As in: your apartment?”

“Where else?”

“You can’t!”

“Why not?”

Because Brian thought that Justin being here meant that he realized that he can’t go on living there. Because Justin can’t live with that guy, who tricks right in front of him, who forbids him to come home because he’s worried about catching something, who hasn’t even bothered to call him as far as Brian can tell, and who doesn’t deserve him – period.

“You can’t live with that guy. You’re selling yourself short.”

Justin seems amused for the first time. “Really?”

“You can do better.”

“Possibly. But better’s always such hard work. Owen’s easy.”

Brian looks at him and wonders if Justin really means that. This is not the Justin he knows. The Justin he knows would never settle for ‘easy’. Hell, he’s prodded and prodded until Brian offered him exactly what he thought Justin wanted, a house, marriage…

Brian jumps up and walks onto the balcony to have a smoke, trying not to think about the past. He has a flight to Denver booked for Saturday afternoon and a shitload of work to do over the weekend for his meeting on Monday. Two more days and he‘ll be out of  here.

But maybe he’s stayed too long already. It took him a long time to get over Justin, to not think about him constantly, to not miss him with every fiber of his being, to not be in pain every waking minute, although those first few months are lost in such a haze of agony that he only vaguely remembers them. And now, after just one week, he’s back to square one. Everything hurts again and Justin is still here. He can’t imagine what it’ll be like when Justin’s gone again. What the fuck was he thinking bringing him here?

And with Justin come all the memories that Brian's worked so hard to forget, ready to crush him all over again. He should never have spent all this time with Justin, but somehow he couldn’t resist and now this whole situation is undermining everything he has achieved. But Brian couldn’t leave Justin to his own devices when he knew Justin was in a quandary. The decision was made _for_ him.

He can feel Justin’s eyes on him, but Justin doesn’t come out onto the balcony and he doesn’t say anything. Brian is grateful for that.

 

*

 

The next day, Brian has an early meeting. Justin is awake and watches him with half-closed eyes, while he’s getting ready. Just one more day and then Justin will go back to his apartment and carry on pretending that his life’s not just an existence when Brian’s not around. Through all the hurt and confusion and awkwardness that being here with Brian has entailed, Justin has felt more alive in this week than he has at any point in the last three years.

He wants Brian so desperately that he has to clench his hands to stop himself from touching him, has to avert his eyes so that he doesn’t stare at him like a love-struck teenager and has to bite the insides of his cheeks not to beg him to take him back. Coming here was a terrible idea, but he really had no choice. It’s Brian – how could Justin possibly have said no?

Brian does his usual push and pull, leaving Justin more and more confused because the way Brian looks at him doesn’t tally with what he says or the even how he behaves. Justin wonders if he’s just imagining that Brian is struggling just as much with the situation and that maybe Brian has missed him as much as he has missed Brian. Sometimes he’s almost sure of it and then he scolds himself for succumbing to his wishful thinking. Until Brian’s cellphone goes off on Friday just as he’s walking in the door from his meeting.

Usually, Brian keeps his cellphone on vibrate when he’s in the hotel, in case Justin is asleep when it goes off, or so Justin assumed. But this time Brian doesn’t get the chance to change the setting and it blares out _Nine to Five_ by Dolly Parton for a minute before Brian can pull it from his pocket and answer it with a barking, “What?”

It seems such a little thing, but Justin can only stare at him and for just a moment he sees panic in Brian’s eyes – and Justin can’t help but smile. By then, Brian has turned his back to him and is powering up his laptop one-handedly, while he’s obviously talking to Cynthia. He ignores Justin and that confirms Justin’s suspicion.

Brian kept his ringtones. Justin would have doubted its significance if Brian hadn’t reacted so obviously guilty, as if he’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He kept his ringtones! Justin’s suppressing his smile now and despite all that has happened this week or hasn’t happened, he makes a leap of faith like he so often had to with Brian. He was right. Brian _has_ missed him.

Justin watches Brian’s back as he goes through some numbers on his screen with Cynthia and carries on working after the phone call ends, completely ignoring him. Justin makes plans in his head, dismisses them and formulates new ones. In the end, he tries the straight forward route first.

“What time are you leaving tomorrow?” he asks, as they’re having dinner at the table in the sitting area.

“Around lunchtime.”

“I’ll leave at the same time. Maybe we can share a cab.”

“You’re not really going back there, are you?”

“Of course, where else would I be going?”

Brian looks at him for a few moments. “You can stay here. Find somewhere better to live. You don’t have to go back there.”

“There’s nothing wrong with where I live. Or whom I live with. It suits me just now. There’s only one reason that would make me move out.”

“And what would that be?” Brian is already borderline snarky.

“If you asked me to live with _you_.” The way Brian is staring at him as if he’s lost his mind already answers the question Justin’s going to ask, but he asks anyway, keeping his voice soft, and relieved that there’s no tremble in it. “Are you asking me, Brian?”

Brian’s answer is predictable and sharp with underlying anger, but it’s also delayed by long moments of hesitation, which Brian may hope to be able to pass off as speechless incredulity but Justin prefers to think of as indecision.

“Of course not. Why would I?”

Justin has always been able to read Brian better than anybody else and he’s just finding his footing again. Of course, it would have been too easy if Brian had capitulated on Justin’s first charge up Mount Kinney, so Justin just nods and carries on with his food.

He needs to find a way to spend more time with Brian and then everything may yet fall into place, he's convinced of it. Of course, spending time with Brian is not so easy when you don’t know where he lives or anything else about his daily life. Maybe Cynthia has reached a point where she’ll be willing to help him. She _did_ give his mother Brian’s number after all.

Justin thinks about seduction, but with the way things are, Brian is just as likely to walk out the door as he is to fall into his arms. If Brian resists, it would mean a major setback and Justin isn’t sure if his ego could take it yet. After all, he’s only just regaining a little confidence where Brian is concerned.

When he goes to bed that night, he’s still no further than he was earlier in the day or last week – or last year really. As much as he has renewed hope now that Brian still has feelings for him, reinforced by an unusual awkwardness on Brian’s part during the rest of the evening, he’s starting to fear that by this time tomorrow, he’ll be where he was for the last three years, lying in his lonely bed with no idea where Brian might be.

The worry keeps Justin awake for longer than usual, but Brian makes no move to join him for most of the night and by the time that he does, Justin is fast asleep.   

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

**PART  FOUR**

In the morning, Brian is awake and dressed when Justin wakes up. Justin is seriously starting to wonder when Brian sleeps because he always goes to sleep long after Justin does and no matter what time he wakes up, Brian is always already up, and even being convalescent doesn’t account for that. Justin doesn’t sleep _that_ much anymore.

When Justin comes out of the shower, Brian has packed his suitcases and put them by the door. The breakfast has arrived and is set out on the table in the living area, where Brian usually works. Brian joins him there, coming in from the balcony after a smoke.

Justin tries to eat something, he really does, but he can feel Brian’s eyes on him when he’s not looking and they seem to be playing eye tag. Eventually, he puts his slice of toast down and looks at Brian until he looks back at Justin. So far, Brian has only been drinking coffee. He may have eaten something earlier, but it doesn’t look like it.

“What?” Brian asks, not unkindly.

“Will I see you again?” If Brian tells him he can see him in his dreams, Justin might actually throw the remainder of his orange juice over him.

“You’ve seen me for a week. Aren’t you sick of me yet?”

“Don’t do that. Don’t play games with me. And I will never be sick of you.” Justin thinks he may as well be honest now. He’s been careful and patient for these past few days and it didn’t get him anywhere. In a few hours, Brian will fly off to God-knows-where and Justin will have no idea if and when he’ll see him again. It’s a thought that’s pushing him close to a panic when he becomes aware of the dwindling amount of time that remains.

“Justin,” Brian says in a slightly scratchy voice and a tone that’s partway between admonishing and pleading. In the past it always leaned more towards a reprimand – when Brian was still telling him what to do, how to behave and how to feel. Now it sounds more beseeching and it works even better. Justin immediately feels that he's overstepped the mark and is making Brian’s life harder than it needs to be.

Justin is quiet for a little while before he realizes what’s happening. Old behavior patterns are hard to break. He’s back to tiptoeing around like he was in the beginning, when he had to fear that he’d get kicked out of the loft if he did or said something Brian didn’t like. But when he becomes aware of it, he thinks: _'Fuck it!'_ or rather: _'Fuck you!’_

“I’ll be in Pittsburgh for Thanksgiving,” he says, watching Brian’s reaction.

Brian rolls his shoulders uncomfortably before he replies. “I don’t do the family things anymore.”

Justin knows that because he’s been to every single Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Labor Day, 4th of July and Pride dinner at Debbie’s for the past three years. He knows that Brian is never there anymore, but now he also knows that Brian hasn’t even bothered to find out if Justin is. It seems that Brian’s not just giving the impression that he’s stopped monitoring Justin from a distance, he actually has. Brian must have stopped even talking about Justin to any of his friends, just like he himself has become a taboo subject for the rest of the family.

“Are you going to Pittsburgh today?”

“No, I’m going to Denver.”

“What’s in Denver?”

“Robertson’s Bakeware.”

“Yuk. They need a new name.”

“Indeed. That’s where I come in.” Brian smiles like he did in the past when they poked fun at his new accounts together. Then the smile dies and he looks back down at his coffee.

Justin is getting frustrated. He can just glimpse the old Brian underneath the veneer of indifference, but whenever the old one comes to the surface, the new Brian shuts everything down.

“If I call you, will you answer your cellphone?”

Brian stirs his coffee and shakes his head. “Probably not.”

“If I cut my wrists and end up in the hospital again, will you come?”

Brian’s head comes up sharply. “Justin,” he says again, this time warningly.

“Why does it have to be this way? Why can’t we be together? You’re miserable. I’m miserable. I want to be with you.”

“Well, you wouldn’t be miserable if you moved out of that place and found yourself a decent boyfriend.”

And just like that Justin feels like he’s seventeen years old again, pleading with Brian outside the loft on Fuller and being told to find himself a girl and get married. It made him cry then, now it makes him angry.

“Be everything I can be?” he sneers.

“Exactly.”

“I _was_ – with _you_.”

This makes Brian get up and walk out onto the balcony. Justin contemplates throwing himself at the man and kissing the hell out of him. He has fond memories of doing the same at Vangard and of the reunion sex that followed not long after. This time he’s not even sure if sex would _mean_ a reunion and as long as he can’t be certain of that, he won’t go that way, no matter what his dick tells him.

There are too many things Justin doesn’t know. He doesn’t know where Brian lives nowadays. Not at the loft, he knows that much. Not at the house. Maybe not even in Pittsburgh. He wasn’t kidding when he asked Brian to tell him at least which city he lives in now. For a long time, he was hoping that Brian was just working really hard, so that he could open a New York branch of Kinnetik and surprise Justin with it. But the last time Justin spoke to him, Ted just sighed and murmured, “I wish!” and that was that. It was also more than a year ago. Ted doesn’t come to Debbie’s dinners any longer either, probably because he’s worried that they’ll ask him questions about Brian.

So, yeah, he can’t even say with certainty that Brian hasn’t got married and has 2.4 children now. Okay, so he admits that’s a terrible example, but it doesn’t alter the fact that he knows nothing about Brian’s life at the moment.

But what really gets to him is that he doesn’t know why. Why Brian disappeared from his life. Why, when he came back after two months, he gradually let everyone else in again – except Justin. And it’s killing him. The not knowing. The not being able to fix it. The endless questions in his head. Missing Brian. He thinks it would be more bearable if he knew why. Or if he’d done something terrible that Brian can’t forgive. But he didn’t.

Sometimes Justin plays mind games, wondering if someone has poisoned Brian’s mind against him, told him some lies to split them up. But apart from not being able to imagine who would do such a thing or what kind of a lie would be terrible enough for that, he also knows that he and Brian were in a place at the time where none of that could have harmed them. Brian would have told Justin about it and it would have been a non-starter.

Justin looks at Brian as he’s standing there, looking out over the city, smoking as if he’s completely forgotten about him. He can’t bear that Brian can do that now. Brian never used to be able to just dismiss him, not even in the beginning, when he ignored Justin a lot but never completely forgot about him. Even then, whenever Justin was in the room, Brian would take notice, if only by pointedly _not_ taking notice.

Justin gets up and walks onto the balcony, stopping beside Brian and touching his arm to make him turn. Brian flinches backwards and glares at him, but at least he’s facing him now.

“Why?”

“Why what?” is Brian’s predictable reply.

“Why did you break up with me?”

Brian just stares at him, his face expressionless. Justin wants to shake him or slap him or do _some_ thing to get some sense into him. This is the first time that he’s even close enough to Brian to be able to ask the question and the fear that he might not get an answer is making him frantic.

“It’s better this way.”

“What? Why? Better for whom? Because it sure as fuck isn’t better for me!”

He wonders briefly if this is just one of those painful break-ups where one half of the couple can’t believe that the other has fallen out of love. But now that he’s here, with Brian, he knows that’s not true. It was possible to imagine that when he never saw Brian because with Brian action always speaks louder than words. But Justin has seen the way that Brian’s looked at him all week. He knows – _knows_ – that Brian still has feelings for him.

Brian stubs out his cigarette in the ashtray. “I’ve got to go,” he says and walks back into the room.

“No, you don’t! You said lunchtime. It’s not even ten o’clock. Answer the fucking question!”

But Brian’s already on the phone to ask the porter to come and collect his baggage and Justin, having been brought up with manners, is silent during the short conversation. And then he doesn’t know what else to say.

Everything is futile. He can scream and shout and cry and nothing will entice Brian to answer his question. He can throw himself at Brian and Brian will just push him away – gently. That makes it even worse, that there’s not enough passion left for a blazing row. Justin’s anger and frustration tip over into an incredible sadness as he watches Brian gather the last of his things and open the door to the porter. It’s obvious that the guy expected something else entirely, but he collects himself pretty quickly when he sees Justin and just picks up the suitcases as he’s asked to do. Brian turns in the doorway and gives Justin a barely there smile.

“Take care of yourself, Justin.”

Justin just glares at him. Brian's leaving early. Those two hours may not have made any difference, but they were rightfully his. Not knowing if he’ll ever see Brian again, Justin feels cheated out of those precious moments.

And then he’s staring at the closed door. When he'd started to reluctantly admit to himself that maybe Brian didn’t love him anymore, he felt that his life, even on his own, would be easier if only he could believe that Brian still loved him. Now he knows what bullshit that is. Knowing that Brian still has feelings for him doesn’t make going home and living without him again one iota easier.

He goes to sit on the bed. Brian was never like this before. He was belligerent sometimes or cold or even a little cruel but he's never been so… untouchable. It’s almost like he isn’t just hiding his feelings, but as if he can switch them off at will. From being the master of deflection, he’s advanced to being the master of simply ignoring any and all things he doesn’t want to deal with.

Justin doesn’t know what to do. The pain and the longing are so immediate and so strong that he has to squeeze his eyes tightly to prevent the tears from falling. He knows that Brian has every intention to never see him again. That this will be his life from now on. Forever. He presses the pads of his forefinger and thumb against his closed eyelids because squeezing them together doesn’t seem to do the trick. “What am I going to do?” he asks desperately into the empty room.

After what feels like a long time, he shakes himself, packs his duffle bag and walks out of the hotel to go home.

 

*

 

Owen Spencer knows he’s a selfish bastard. He grew up with parents who doted on their only child and had the money to prove it. Even when he came out, there wasn’t the slightest blip on the radar, which was no great surprise with his mother doing the PR work for an AIDS charity. He was a successful interior designer by the time he was in his mid-twenties. His good looks and easy charm have always assured his popularity and because he doesn’t have to deal with women, he can fuck anyone he fancies without having to make too much of an effort. Having an actual relationship just seems like too much hard work to him. Why bother with all that hassle when he can have his needs met without it?

But recently he’s come to think that there’s something to be said for companionship. Justin isn’t the first guy living with him, but he’s certainly the most pleasant. Coming home to find him watching TV in the living area or doing anything anywhere in the place gives Owen a feeling of actually having a home instead of merely a place to live. It doesn’t hurt that Justin is happy to fuck most of the time as well – when he’s not in the throes of creation.

For the longest time, Owen thought that Justin is just like his previous roomies, madly in love with him and only able to hide it better. There were occasional displays of affection that Owen tolerated at first and then came to anticipate with pleasure. And that was when it all went to shit. Because reciprocating those moments didn’t lead to them becoming more frequent. On the contrary, if anything, Justin withdrew whenever Owen said or did something that could be construed as affectionate.

So Owen stopped. He isn’t used to doing the chasing and he won’t. He can wait this out. Eventually, Justin will break down and tell him, or at least show him, how much he loves him and Owen fully intends to make him work for every scrap of affection from now on. He doesn’t need Justin. He’s Owen Spencer and there are plenty of other guys who are clamoring for his attention.

And then Brian turns up.

Owen's always known about Brian, from day one. Everybody who knows Justin knows about Brian, maybe not by name, but they know that there’s someone in his past whom he can’t get over.  Justin doesn’t talk about it much, but there’s this aura of sadness that surrounds him like a cloud.

Hanging two paintings of the guy in his living area is Owen’s way of dealing with it. At first, it doesn’t bother him much. Why should he care that his roommate’s still hankering after his ex? The one that shows Brian in all his naked glory gets the most attention from visitors and clients. It’s blatantly erotic, the guy is every gay man’s wet dream and even Owen’s straight friends remark on the way the painting straddles the line between being lascivious and being a declaration of love to the subject – and somehow from the subject to the artist as well.

But over time, the other painting has come to disconcert Owen. It’s an abstract of vague shapes doing whatever the observer imagines them to be doing. It’s the emotions it evokes that make Owen uncomfortable. There’s love in that painting but also a sadness that‘s so intense that it borders on despair. And it is Brian. You have to know Justin to know that, but if you do, then there’s no other interpretation of the painting, even if you don’t know the title: _'Loss_ ’. It takes Owen nearly five months of looking at it and thinking about it before he works out what it is that he hates about it: it’s knowing that if _he_ disappeared tomorrow, Justin would miss him, sure, but he'd never feel even a fraction of what’s portrayed in that painting, for Owen or anybody else.

So when Brian suddenly appears in his living room, looking twice as gorgeous, sexy and self-assured as he does in the painting, and asking for Justin’s stuff, Owen gets a feeling of impending doom. It’s okay to compete with a ghost, who'll never become real again, no matter how much Justin might wish it, but it’s an altogether different matter to suddenly have this ghost breathing, walking and talking – and be so damned irresistible while doing it. Owen never feared Brian before because he never imagined Brian would turn up again. And he never worried about losing Justin before because he never realized how it would affect him.

So when he hears his roommate coming back to the apartment after nearly two weeks away, Owen realizes that he’s a little concerned about what he just did. Justin will forgive him for not visiting him at the hospital and wherever else he was afterwards, but this might be asking too much.

“Stay here,” he hisses at the trick in his bed and throws on some sweatpants before shutting the door very carefully as he leaves the room.

Justin’s left his duffle bag by the door and made his way into the open-plan kitchen area, where he’s busying himself with making some coffee.

“Hi,” Justin says, smiling a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Did you just get up?”

“Uhm, kinda.”

Owen thinks that Justin looks pale and drawn, but he can’t bring himself to go over there to give him a hug like he wants, just like he couldn’t bring himself to visit him in the hospital. He has a mortal fear of getting sick that he can’t overcome for anyone.

“How are you?” he asks instead, giving his bedroom door a surreptitious glance. Maybe he can persuade Justin to take a rest in his own room because the trick isn’t going to stay quietly in his bedroom for hours until the coast is clear, is he?

“Tired.”

 _Thank you, God!_ “Maybe you should lie down.”

Owen's never felt this way before. He’s never made any secret of his tricking, not even with his parents, never mind other guys. He does what he does and he doesn’t owe anyone an explanation or an apology. Justin’s never shown any signs of having an issue with it either, but he’s just come home from hospital and Owen feels so goddamned callous about doing this while he was away.

“I will,” Justin says easily. “I might just vegetate on the couch for a bit.”

 _No!_ “Uhm, wouldn’t you be more comfortable in your room?”

Justin pulls a face that can only be described as cute, with his slight frown and his nose scrunched up. Then he smiles a soft smile. “Don’t worry. I’m no longer contagious – haven’t been for a while. You won’t catch anything.”

He’s always so calm and understanding. It’s infuriating Owen at times. You can’t even have a decent argument with the guy. Owen thinks that the only way he can salvage the situation is by playing heavily on his phobia and ordering Justin to go to his room so that he won’t contaminate the living room. It’ll give Owen a chance to sneak his visitor out on the quiet.

But then it’s too late anyway. He can hear his bedroom door open and if he wanted a reaction out of Justin, here it is. Justin’s looking past him at the other guy and he looks more stricken than Owen has ever seen him. Justin pales a little more, if that’s even possible, and then Owen thinks he can see tears filling his eyes.

“Hey, Sunshine,” the guy behind him says with a slight drawl. Jeez, he really has no shame. Can’t he see how upset Justin is? And _Sunshine_? Owen has never heard anybody call Justin _Sunshine_. He turns to look at Brian, who’s impeccably dressed in his suit and tie and looks back at Owen with a slight smirk.

And suddenly Owen knows that he’s been played. When Brian turned up an hour ago for ‘some more of Justin’s stuff’, Owen thought seducing him would go some ways to making himself feel better. It irked him that Brian was looking after Justin while he himself didn’t even know where he was. Yes, fucking Brian seemed like a good idea at the time. Only now Owen’s no longer sure if it was really him who did the seducing and he certainly didn’t do any of the fucking.

He turns back to the kitchen when he hears a slight noise, like a hiccup, and he sees Justin rush past them into his bedroom, slamming and locking the door behind him. That’s certainly never happened before. He turns back to Brian, who has sauntered to the front door.

“You did that on purpose! You knew he was coming home and you set me up, you fucker!”

Brian turns briefly at the door. “You thought I fucked you because you’re hot? Get real!” And then Brian’s gone, leaving Owen with the mess he created and the strong desire to punch him if he ever sees him again.

Owen stands there for long moments, wondering what to do. He’s never been in this situation before, never felt the need to placate anybody. His reaction has always been to shrug and move on. But he doesn’t want to do that with Justin. He doesn’t want to move on. Owen thinks that he’s finally getting a handle on Justin, on how damaged he is by this guy who sets people up in his little games. This was so deliberate that the only explanation Owen can think of is that Brian must be jealous. And if he is, then that can only mean that Justin has given him a reason to be jealous. That’s good news, right?

He thinks he should let Justin stew for a little while and then maybe take him out to dinner tonight, after he’s coaxed him out of his bedroom. But just as he’s turning towards his own bedroom to have a shower, Justin comes out of his, his messenger bag slung over his shoulder.

Justin looks around the living room for a bit, picking up one of the books and depositing it in his bag.

“I’ll come back later for the rest of my stuff,” he says.

“Huh?”

Justin stops to look at him. “I’m going away for a bit. And I probably won’t come back. Thank you for all you’ve done for me.”

He seems so incredibly calm that Owen wants to shake him. “Why? Listen, Justin, I know fucking Brian may have been in bad taste, but it was just a fuck. It didn’t mean anything. _He_ came on to _me_. He set the whole thing up. He knew you were going to come home, didn’t he?”

Justin smiles and it looks genuinely amused. “I know. It’s what he does. He doesn’t like me living here, so he found a way that I can’t.”

“He did it on purpose. Don’t let him come between us, Justin.”

Justin stops smiling and looks a little upset now. “I like you, Owen. I wouldn’t have moved in here if I didn’t, but there’s no _us_. We’re just roommates and friends. I thought that’s what you wanted.”

Owen is backpedalling frantically. “It is…but…” _I want you here!_ But he can’t get the words out because he knows they won’t make any difference. The attitude of unconcern that Justin has shown him over the past year, was not, as Owen thought, a cover-up for his true feelings after all, it was just what it appeared to be: indifference. Owen can’t believe that he’s the one ending up in the position of jilted lover. That’s not right. The world has gone crazy.

 

Justin looks at Owen and recognizes the signs. What is it about him that makes even the toughest guys crack in the end? Although Justin’s always known that Owen isn’t nearly as tough as he thinks he is. He has nothing on Brian.

And this isn’t about Owen. This is about the fact that Justin knows he will no longer be able to look at Owen and not see him and Brian together. He doesn’t care who Owen sleeps with, he never did. That was never pretense on his part, no matter what other people thought. What Justin didn’t know was that Owen thought it as well. If Justin had known how Owen really feels, he would have behaved differently, would have been more careful.

No, this is about Brian. It’s always about Brian. Brian, who’s decided that Justin shouldn’t live with Owen and made sure that he can’t. Justin knows that Owen is just an innocent bystander, who never stood a chance against the force that is Brian Kinney. Brian hasn’t changed. He still decides what’s best for people and forces them to see things his way, no matter the consequences. Owen’s just collateral damage and Justin’s far too weary to fix this. He can’t focus on other people right now. All he wants is find somewhere quiet to think and decide what he wants to do and make plans. And sleep. A lot.

“I’m sorry,” he says. Then he goes and picks up his duffle bag and leaves the apartment where he’s lived for the last year, knowing that this chapter of his life is over.

 

*

 

Brian takes a deep breath as he’s standing on the sidewalk, waiting for the cab he asked the doorman to call for him. He’s a little edgy because he half-expects Justin to come bursting out of the building and scream abuse at him. Not that Brian wouldn’t understand that. What he did, however necessary, was shitty even in his own books.

Owen was a good fuck – as Brian expected him to be. Apart from a blowjob from the bellhop at the hotel in one of the storerooms and fucking one of his clients on Wednesday, he hasn’t had sex all week. And Justin being so close all that time had him on a low but permanent arousal the whole time, so a good fuck was much needed and appreciated. But that’s not why he did it.

He went to the apartment under a pretext, fully intending to fuck the guy and have Justin walk in on them. He would have preferred to give Justin the full view, because then the impact would have been so much greater, but apparently they have rules about fucking in the living area. Never mind, it worked well enough anyway, judging by the expression on Justin’s face when he saw him.

Brian doesn’t spare a single thought for Owen. The guy had it coming. He should have treated Justin better and it’s not as if Owen didn’t know that Justin wouldn't look too kindly on Owen fucking Brian. Now Justin will see him for what he is. And not before time.

When Brian was talking to Justin this morning, he felt an impending panic. He knows that he can never see Justin again, but the more he thought about saying goodbye to him, the harder it seemed to become. So in the end, he left early, because every minute he stayed there brought him closer to breaking down and just grabbing Justin and kissing him to within an inch of his life. Justin made it clear enough that he wants Brian back and that just isn’t an option.

So Brian got the bellhop to store his suitcases for a couple of hours and went to put his plan into action. It went like this: he would go and fuck Owen and either Justin would walk in on them, if the timing was right, or he would find out about it later – Brian was quite willing to make sure of that himself if need be – and that would spell the end of Justin’s relationship with the guy. That was the first step.

Justin deserves someone better than Owen. He deserves to be happy and at the moment he’s settling. Brian has the suspicion that it’s in part because Justin’s still waiting for Brian to come back. So now Justin will know that Brian won’t and what’s more, he’ll no longer _want_ Brian to come back. Justin will be free to find someone new, someone who gives him what he needs and makes him happy. Step two.

Brian needs Justin to be happy. All this time he’s avoided gathering any information about Justin because at first he didn’t want to hear how unhappy Justin was and then, as time went by, he assumed that Justin had moved on and he didn’t particularly want to hear about that either. But this situation is unacceptable. Brian cannot worry about Justin and this guy. It was hard enough not to think about Justin when Brian assumed he was happy.

So, unless Justin’s changed completely, this will be the end of that. Justin won’t forgive his boyfriend for fucking Brian. He won’t forgive Brian either, but that’s the last part of the plan. One, Justin will be free to find someone else, someone better than both Owen and Brian and, two, he won’t dream of trying to get back with Brian now.

Sometimes, Brian really hates himself for being so feeble. He barely managed to keep up his detachment all week and what he fears the most is that Justin will start pursuing him again. For over a year there were emails and phone calls and even letters and every single time it killed him inside to delete the emails unread and ignore the phone calls when all he wanted was to hear Justin’s voice – or even just hear him breathe, for fuck’s sake. He cannot go through that again.

Now Justin won’t do any of that. Brian can disappear again and find some sort of equilibrium and carry on as before. He managed to give Justin an incentive to move on, prevented him from starting to stalk Brian again and got a good fuck all in one fell swoop. All in all, it was a win-win-win situation.

Brian just wishes that he felt better about it. As he climbs into the cab and gives instructions to take him back to the hotel to collect his belongings and take him on to the airport, he grits his teeth, thinking that with enough determination everything will go back to the way it was before Jennifer Taylor called him two Mondays ago.

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

 

**PART  FIVE**

Justin drops the duffle bag by the door, places the pizza he got from the all-night take-out place on the small table in the hallway and pulls out his cellphone just before it goes to voicemail.

“Hi, Mom.”

“ _Hi, Sweetheart. Where are you? I’ve been calling you for hours!”_

He pulls a face and tries to make his voice sound neutral. “Owen and I had a… difference of opinion.” That’s not quite true but almost. The next line is a complete lie though. “I’m going to be staying with a friend for a bit.”

“ _Which friend?”_

“Mom. I’m twenty-six. I can stay with a friend without telling my mother. I’m fine.”

“ _Justin, uhm… okay then. But you’re still recovering and I’m worried about you.”_

 _“_ I know, Mom. But everything’s fine. I just got here and I just want to eat something and go to sleep for a bit. I’m really tired.”

As he says the words, he can feel the fatigue crashing down on him. After leaving the apartment, he spent three hours at the bus station waiting for an available seat on a bus to Pittsburgh and he feels lucky to have got one so quickly. On the other hand, who wants to go to Pittsburgh of all places anyway, so free seats on the next bus there are most likely not such a rare occurrence. During the journey, he managed to doze a little, but the guy next to him was on his cellphone almost the entire time until Justin was ready to strangle him and then stomp gleefully on the infernal contraption. Justin’s own cellphone was switched off because _he_ has been brought up with manners.

“ _Are you sure you’re looking after yourself properly? Where’s Brian? I thought he was with you?”_

Justin suppresses a snort that would lead to a drawn-out discussion that he’s simply not ready for yet and sticks to basic information. “He had to go to Denver on business.”

“ _Oh, of course. It was nice of him to look after you. He didn’t hesitate for a second when I called him.”_

“Yes, I know, Mom. You said. Can I call you tomorrow? It’s late and I’m exhausted.” He yawns loudly and it's not simply to emphasize the point.

“ _Of course, Honey. I’ll speak to you tomorrow. G’dnight.”_

“Night, Mom.”

Justin is glad that the conversation went rather better than he feared, but he knows he won’t be able to fob her off forever. Eventually, she’ll want to know where he is and he’ll have to tell her something.

He’s only stayed in this house about a handful of times. In the nine month period when he was in New York and before everything went to hell, he and Brian spent half a dozen glorious weekends here, but Justin could never see Brian living here permanently. Out in the country, away from the bustle of the city, no clubs, no take-out deliveries? It’s not really Brian, but for those weekends away, after the days of separation, it was perfect.

Brian said he liked being at the house because no one would disturb their fuckfests, but in the evenings it was Brian, not Justin, who sat on the patio at the back of the house and listened to the profound silence – for a full two hours once, while Justin drew him without his knowledge from a vantage point just inside the house. For a man so full of energy, Brian could be incredibly still sometimes. Justin found the silence out here unnerving, but a still Brian fascinated him. When he thinks about it, he realizes that Brian was just as still for most of the time this past week. Not quiet, _still_ , like he was waiting for something.

Justin takes a slice of pizza from the carton and eats it on his way upstairs. To his knowledge, only two of the bedrooms are furnished and he hopes that the housekeeper, who comes once every couple of weeks to do whatever she does, has left the beds as they were because he’s too tired to put clean sheets on. And he’s in luck. The bed looks inviting in its pristine glory and he drops all of his clothes on the floor and crawls under the covers to the middle of the bed with a heartfelt sigh. He’s asleep within a minute.

 

*

 

When Justin wakes up, he thinks that this might not have been such a good idea after all. Looking around the room from this position reminds him of the times he was here with Brian, but then again, everything reminds him of Brian, so maybe it doesn’t make any difference.

He takes a shower in a cubicle that’s twice the size of the one at the loft. Half of the room adjacent to the master bedroom was sacrificed to create an en-suite bathroom of enormous proportions, while the other half became a walk-in wardrobe. Everything in this house is a little too grand for Justin’s taste. He feels dwarfed by the sheer scale of it and although you can’t quite get lost in the place, there are certainly more rooms than he and Brian were ever likely to need. He hates the place, what it stands for and what it will never be now. Justin suspects that Brian feels the same way.

When Brian disappeared for those two long months, Justin came out here every day, just to check if Brian was here, because apart from Brian and him, no one knew about this place. He was hoping that Brian would retreat here and that he wouldn’t mind Justin finding him because it was inconceivable to Justin that Brian was including him in the people he needed to get away from.

Since then, Ted's found out about this place because Brian sent him to New York a year later to give Justin the deeds to the house and the keys. Justin was torn between being angry with Brian for being too much of a coward to do it himself and being devastated because it was the final straw. This house had been a symbol of how they finally managed to come together and Brian was giving it away! Because he no longer wanted it. Because he no longer wanted _him_.

Justin has hated Britin with a passion ever since. It’s now a symbol of failure and because of that, it feels sinister somehow. He only accepted it because Ted persuaded him – mainly by saying how much trouble he’d be in if he returned to Pittsburgh with Justin’s refusal. If Justin had thought that it would make Brian come to see him in person, he would have said no, but Ted was in a difficult enough position already and Justin was too upset to be decisive.

So now he owns this monstrosity – although Kinnetik still pays for the upkeep – but this is the first time he’s set foot in it since. If Justin had anywhere else to go, he would. On the other hand, it has the advantage of being secluded and its existence is unknown to anybody else in his make-shift family. It will afford him the peace he craves right now.

When he gets downstairs into the kitchen, he realizes that he hasn’t thought this through properly. The only food in the cupboards is a lonely unopened box of Cheerios and coffee, but there’s no milk. Justin thinks he could probably down the coffee without milk and starts the coffee maker. The gurgling of the machine drowns out the oppressing silence of the place. The fridge and the freezer are gleamingly clean but propped open to air out and he shuts both of them and plugs them in. He never before realized how much the soft humming of electrical appliances is part of the daily background noise of life. Its absence has a creepy quality to it.

He lasts for only half an hour before he picks up his cellphone, wallet and keys and makes his way out to his hired car. Last night, he nearly went off the road at a deceptively sharp bend about two miles from the house, but it’s not too bad during the day. It’s a known accident black spot and he thinks how he wouldn’t like to try and negotiate this road in the winter. No, living at Britin permanently isn't really an option he would consider, with or without Brian.

The diner is as quiet as it always is on Sundays in the early afternoon and it’s good to know that some things never change. Justin feels a little tired still, despite having slept until lunchtime, so it suits him not to be in the middle of a crowd.

Debbie’s face is a picture of surprise and affection when she sees him and she places the tray she’s carrying on a random table next to her, ignoring the protests of the customers sitting there, and comes to give him a long hug. Their greeting has that characteristic melancholy to it that all their dealings have nowadays. Sometimes it feels like the whole family has gone into a collective silence.

“How are you, Sunshine?”

He cringes a little at the nickname but only because he remembers Brian using it yesterday in that mocking tone that always accompanies it when he does. In general, it makes Justin feel at home when Debbie says it. She maneuvers him into one of the booths and delivers the abandoned tray before she comes to sit with him.

“Are you feeling better? Your mom said you were in hospital again.” She makes it sound as if he has a habit of ending up in that place when this was only the second time in his life. Granted, he never goes there for anything less than a coma.

“I’m fine now,” he says dismissively and comes straight to the point. “I saw Brian.”

She nods a few times. “Yeah, I heard that. How is he?” There’s so much worry and sadness in her voice that it makes Justin want to weep. This is the reason they never talk about Brian, because it chokes him up more often than not and he’s not the only one.

“Don’t you know?”

“How can I? I never see him. Don’t know where he lives, what he does, who he fucks…”

Justin can’t help but smile a little at that last bit. That’s more like the Debbie he knows and loves.

“When was the last time you saw him?” he asks.

“A few weeks ago. He sat right where you’re sitting now.”

“How was he then?”

“Same as always. Quiet. Remote. Not really answering any questions. Just like you are now.”

“He was fine when I saw him,” Justin says and pulls a face. “Well, the same as you described him, but, you know, healthy.” And beautiful. And sexy. And so… severe. “What about Michael? When did he see Brian last?”

“I’m not sure. He has a lot more contact with him than any of us, but what that means exactly, I don’t know. The little shit never tells me anything.”

“Doesn’t anybody make sure he’s alright?” Justin asks a little heatedly, and unfairly, he knows. He just had a week of Brian determining all aspects of their interaction and he knows that everyone else has even less of a chance of getting through to him. Well, except Michael, who always had a special place in Brian’s life.

“Justin,” Debbie says tiredly and he realizes for the first time how much older she looks under all the make-up she’s wearing. “Brian’s always done what he wants and he always made sure that everyone else does exactly what he wants, too. You’re the only one who never accepted that.”

“Are you saying that I was wrong?”

She shakes her head. “No, you were right and we were wrong. But that doesn’t mean that we can do what you can. Quite frankly, I’m already worried that he’ll never speak to me again if he ever finds out that I’m talking to you about him.”

Justin snorts mirthlessly at that. “Don’t worry. The only person who ever loses any privileges seems to be me.”

“Yeah, I can’t get my head around that either.” She leans over the table a bit and lightly taps his cheek a few times in a consoling gesture.

Justin orders a belated breakfast and when it arrives after Debbie has served a few more tables, she comes back and talks about her granddaughter for a while. Everybody was pleased when Lindsay and Melanie decided after only three months that Canada wasn’t for them. The Starbucks at the corner didn’t make up for having to get low-paid jobs and work longer hours, which just didn’t work out when they no longer had in-built babysitters in the form of the family. On top of that, Lindsay was so incredibly homesick that she could barely bring herself to get out of bed in the mornings.

And Debbie talks about Hunter, who’s now at college. And Michael and Ben. Ben had to change his medication again, but after a rough couple of weeks, the side effects have settled down now.

Justin reflects on how Sunday dinners seem to have fallen by the wayside without any objections from anybody and wonders if that’s the reason that Debbie’s here today, rather than at home.

When Debbie mentions that Michael is doing inventory at the shop today, he finishes his food and makes his way there. It’s always better to talk to Michael alone. He tends to get very defensive when there’re other people around and then Ben always interferes on his behalf. You can’t argue with Ben, he’s way too adept at deflection and mediation. Justin always ends up discussing his own anger instead.

It’s not that he intends to pick a fight with Michael. They’re business partners after all, even though _Rage_ only comes out twice a year and generates what can only be described as meager revenues. Justin’s main source of income comes from mural painting, which he does on commission. It started fifteen months ago when he first met Owen and painted a mural for one of his interior design projects. From there it snowballed somehow and nowadays even Owen couldn’t afford to hire Justin anymore. _Rage_ is just a hobby he’s rather fond of.

However, Michael sees Brian way more than anybody else does, apart from maybe Ted, and Justin won’t back down this time until he gets to the bottom of what’s going on. It’s not possible that Brian split up with him for no reason at all and as he can no longer believe that lack of affection was to blame, he needs to know what was.

Perversely enough, it was Brian fucking Owen that convinced Justin that Brian still loves him. Brian wouldn’t have bothered to ‘fix’ Justin’s life if he didn’t care. It was Michael's thirtieth birthday party all over again and Brian was lucky that he didn’t end up getting punched in the face this time, too.

It takes quite a while to get an answer to his persistent knocking. Finally, Michael sticks his head out of the storeroom and comes to the door when he recognizes him.

“Hey, Justin,” he smiles, locking the door back up after him.

“Hey, Michael.”

They don’t attempt to hug. They stopped doing that after Justin accused Michael one too many times of withholding information from him and they had a screaming match in Debbie’s kitchen. Things were said that can never be unsaid and, even though they’ve made up, there’s still some awkwardness. Justin really can’t help resenting Michael for remaining in Brian’s favor and for keeping Brian’s secrets, even though he knows he’d do exactly the same if the roles were reversed. Both their loyalties have always been first and foremost to Brian.

Michael asks him about the drawings for _Rage_ and Justin doesn’t think it would be a good idea to let on that he hasn’t started them yet, so he pretends that they’re at his New York apartment – which isn’t even his apartment anymore, but Michael doesn’t need to know that either. As the deadline is still a couple of months away, neither one of them is very concerned.

For a while, they fill each other in about what’s going on in their lives, with Justin downplaying his recent hospital visit and Michael talking at length about Ben’s health and his own. They do that nowadays, talk about mundane stuff like their health and the weather. Because, other than _Rage,_ they no longer have anything in common.

“Brian was in New York,” Justin finally says.

Michael, who’s in the process of handing him a mug of steaming coffee, halts in his movements, and his features take on a panicked expression. He doesn’t move until Justin stretches out his hand to take his drink. Letting go of the mug, Michael asks almost nonchalantly, but not quite, “What did he say?”

“Don’t you know? I thought you talk to him all the time.”

“Not _all the time_. He calls me whenever he’s in Pittsburgh.”

“Which is how often?”

“Justin. You know he doesn’t want me to tell you things.” Michael avoids looking at him by blowing on his coffee to cool it down.

“I’m not asking you to tell me what he says, just how often he calls. Once a week? Twice a week? Every day?”

Michael shrugs and Justin has to try really hard not to get angry. His response is a little heated despite his efforts. “How often, Michael? Because you’re the only one talking to him right now and it’s your responsibility to make sure he’s alright.”

“How can I be responsible for him when he doesn’t…” Michael blushes a little and falls silent.

And suddenly Justin has a frightening idea. “ _How often_ , Michael?” His voice is full of the foreboding that’s gripping his insides. “For once in your life, stop defending your territory as his ‘best friend’ and let us try and help him.”

“Less than that,” Michael says finally and looks at anything but Justin. After it’s been quiet in the storeroom for about a minute, while Justin stares at him, Michael adds, “About twice a month.”

“And when was the last time you saw him?” It comes out in a voice that sounds just as incredulous as he feels.

“About two months ago. I saw him during his lunch hour, at the diner.”

“Two m…” Justin can’t even finish his sentence he’s so stunned by the news. “But…” He thinks back on conversations they had over the last couple of years and while Justin was under the impression that Michael spoke to Brian all the time, he has to admit that the other man never actually said it in so many words.

“Do you mean to tell me, that for the past three years nobody’s been keeping an eye on him? He calls twice a month and sees you… what… half a dozen times a year and the rest of the time you left him to his own devices? After all that happened, you thought that was _enough_?”

“He won’t talk to anyone, Justin. We tried calling him, but he doesn’t answer his cell. We left messages, but he ignores those, too. We can’t get into Kinnetik anymore and, anyway, nobody ever knows when he’s even in the office. I’m afraid that if I push him, he’ll never speak to me again, like he does with you. I can’t lose him!” 

“Why did you never say anything?”

“Because then you would have done something and he’d blame _me_. I’ve known him for twenty years. I miss him. You’ve no idea how much. I can’t lose what little he’s giving me at the moment. I guess I’m always hoping that he’ll get over it and, you know… be Brian again.”

Justin doubts very much that that’s likely to happen, but Michael looks so miserable that he can’t tell him that. Nor can he let out his frustration on him.

“He writes to me,” Michael carries on, nodding towards the back of the storeroom.

At first, Justin isn’t sure what he’s looking at, but then he notices that the back wall is plastered with postcards, which are tacked against the wooden cladding. He moves closer, drawn by the sheer quantity. There’re dozens of them, all showing pictures of hotels. His artist’s attention to detail realizes straight away that a lot of them are duplicates.

He pulls one of them off the wall and reads it, not caring that they’re private. He’s willing to tear them all off, if it’ll give him an insight in what’s going on with Brian. _Wish you were here? B._ is all it says in what is undoubtedly Brian’s handwriting.

“They all say exactly the same,” Michael says. “Whenever he gets to a new place, he sends me a card with the hotel he’s in. Even if he’s been there before. So I always know where he is.”

Justin thinks it’s more like knowing where he _was,_ because who knows where Brian is by the time the card reaches Pittsburgh?

“How many are there?”

“I don’t know. I get about one a week, sometimes two.”

There’s a long pause while Justin keeps looking at the wall. Brian has never been one to do the touristy things, like writing cards and buying souvenirs. If ever he brought anything back with him, it was always clothes that he picked up for Justin while he was trawling the designer stores in whatever city he happened to be. And Brian doesn’t exactly travel for fun anyway, it’s usually business. Justin wonders why he started sending cards. And then he wonders what _he_ would have done if _he_ had got these over the last three years. It would have meant the world to him, just as it does to Michael. He tries to clamp down on his feelings of jealousy.

“What about Emmett?”

“Emmett says he sees him at Babylon sometimes.”

“And…?”

“And nothing. Brian says hello, they talk, he does what he does and that’s it… You really don’t get it! Just because we see him occasionally, doesn’t mean that we know more than you do. I don’t even fucking know where he lives nowadays. When I see him, it’s always at the diner or sometimes he comes here. He doesn’t even go to my mom’s house anymore.”

If Justin had not just spent a whole week with Brian feeling like Brian wasn’t really there, he’d have scoffed at that. But he’s beginning to understand that talking to Brian the way he is now doesn’t mean the same as it used to. He feels like he should be apologizing for the way he behaved in the past, accusing everyone of lying to him and not telling him what he wants to know. It’s obvious to him now that there’s simply nothing to tell.

“Justin,” Michael says quietly. “When you were in hospital and your mother called… I was too chicken shit to give her Brian’s number. We all were. We were all scared that he’d never speak to us again if we did. He said as much when he gave us his new number. But I’m sorry about that. Please, say sorry to your mom as well.”

“S’all right. I understand.”

“How did she get hold of him in the end?”

“Cynthia.”

“Of course. Well, I suppose he can’t cut _her_ out of his life.”

“No, I suppose not. Just us.” 

 

Justin walks around Liberty Avenue for two hours, just revisiting the places that meant so much to him when he was younger. He loves New York, has loved it there from day one, and if he didn’t have family here, he'd never come back. But as he’s sitting on the steps of Babylon, he feels at home, even though the club’s still closed for another four hours. He was happy here and desperately unhappy at times, too, but there was always Brian and that made it glorious when things were good and worth hanging on for when they were not.

He knows that some people question that Brian did him any good. Brian’s lifestyle had such an emphasis on clubbing and sex and he was so convinced that it was the only honest way to be gay, that Justin didn’t see that it wasn’t the be-all and end-all it seemed at seventeen. There are other people, who have different ways and are just as out and proud and just as happy. Only, they don’t get laid as often.

If Justin had met Ethan first, his life would have been very different and he may never have known the club lifestyle. But he looks at it differently. However much he did things because Brian expected them of him or because he wanted to show Brian that he could keep up or because Brian said this was the way to be and he believed him, Justin always enjoyed it and he’s fucked more men than he can count.

At twenty-six he can look back on his youth and know that he didn’t miss out on anything. He may have tired of the club life, but he wouldn’t have missed it for the world. It was fun, it was exciting, especially with Brian by his side and if he ever settles down, he won’t be left wondering what it’s like to fuck other guys or go to the baths or have orgies. Now Justin wants a different kind of life, a different kind of relationship and before everything went to hell, he and Brian were moving in that direction. In Brian’s case it was slow at first, and then he somehow overtook Justin after the bombing and now… who knows what Brian wants now? Justin is determined to find out, but he needs to find Brian for that.

 

*

 

The next day, he’s at Kinnetik by ten o’clock. The security guard, who now guards the entrance, comes to life when he sees Justin, even though Justin's never met the guy before. Brian must be circulating his picture or something, because Justin finds his way blocked before he can put his hand on the glass door.

“Sorry, sir, but I can’t let you in.”

“I know that.” Justin's been here before – numerous times in the first year, when he wouldn’t give up on seeing Brian. The security guards wouldn’t let him in and the fact that Brian hired someone for that very purpose said a lot about how serious he was about not wanting to see Justin. “Can you tell Cynthia that I’m here?”

The guy eyes him with suspicion as if he’s worried that Justin may try to slip past him while he’s distracted, which is a ludicrous idea because the guard is twice his size. Justin takes a few steps back and watches the man pull out his cell phone and telling Cynthia that ‘Mr. Taylor is at the front door’. Justin hates this. It’s hard for him that he’s no longer part of Brian’s inner circle and the fact that Brian has extended this dubious distinction to every other member of the family as well doesn’t make it any easier to bear.

Cynthia comes out with a big smile on her face and actually gives him a hug, the first one ever, as far as he can remember. Maybe this will be easier than he thought.

“I wanted to thank you for helping my mom out,” he says, deliberately not mentioning what Cynthia actually did, in case the guard will report it back to Brian and she’ll get into trouble.

“My mother has congestive heart failure and I know what it’s like to be stuck somewhere, worrying about someone you love. But that’s not why you’re here, is it?”

Justin shakes his head and to his surprise, she makes an inviting gesture to come inside. The guard steps forward again.

“Brian’s not here, Sean,” Cynthia says tiredly. “And in his absence, you answer to me. If you’re worried about what he’ll say if he finds out, don’t tell him. _I_ won’t. And if he does find out and says anything to you, refer him to me. I’ll take full responsibility.”

The guard, Sean, hesitates just a few more moments, then steps aside to let them pass silently. Justin can’t believe how privileged he feels to be back inside Kinnetik for the first time in three years.

 

Cynthia has always liked Justin. For the longest time she didn’t even know that there was someone, only that there was a Justin who called occasionally – very rarely really, about three or four times – and was a lot pleasanter to talk to than Michael. But that all changed after the bashing. Justin’s name was in the papers and so was Brian’s, who took time off work for the first time since she’d known him. She also read Howard Bellweather’s article about Brian in the local rag. If she hadn’t known Brian so well, she might even have agreed with the guy.

She’d always known about Brian’s sexual exploits. He never made a secret about them, at least not with her and, to some extent, she even colluded with him. Whenever he came back from a business trip with a new contract, she always asked him if they liked the idea or the fuck. Usually, he would grin and say ‘both’ or if the client wasn’t to his liking or female, he would pull a disgusted face and shudder. So Cynthia had to ask herself if Brian was really the right type of company for a boy of seventeen, who was no doubt head over heels in love with him – who wouldn’t be? Only Brian was so different after he came back to work that she had no doubt about his feelings either. They never talked about it.

She knew Justin was the new intern in the Arts Department before Brian did. By then she’d gathered that Brian had been living with the boy, who’d crept up in their conversations with increasing frequency and that there’d been a break-up. But she was sick of Brian being so abrasive with everyone, like he’d been for a few weeks now and so she didn’t tell him. She was sorely tempted to make up an excuse to follow Brian to the Art Department when he met Justin there for the first time, but when she later asked her friend Abby what had happened – without mentioning why she was interested, of course – Abby shrugged and said ‘nothing’. Brian Kinney, the master of the poker face.

When Brian opened Kinnetik, Justin was a frequent visitor. He was always polite and friendly and she got on well with him, sometimes better than she did with Brian, especially when he was in one of his moods. Justin was good for Brian. Brian was always different when Justin was around, not so much nicer, because he was always strictly professional, but more approachable and open somehow. Since Justin’s no longer in the picture, the whole atmosphere at Kinnetik has changed from exciting fun to severe professionalism. A bit like it was at Vangard and Ryder. And she knows it’s not only about Justin no longer being there, but she also knows that nothing will ever change if he doesn’t come back.

So Cynthia leads him, not into her own office but into Brian’s. Predictably, Justin hones in onto the large painting that’s been up on the wall for almost a year now.

“I didn’t know he bought that.”

“He wanted it that way. It gets a lot of comments from visitors.” She waits for him to sit down because, even after a three-years absence, it still feels like Justin has a lot more right to play host in this place than she has. Only, Justin isn’t like that. He’s less about outward appearances and more about substance. Justin was always about Brian alone, not his money, not his power, just him.

“Can you help me?” he asks, looking at her with those big blue eyes.

Cynthia likes that he doesn’t try and trick her into anything. He’s very much like his mother, who simply told her what was going on and asked her for Brian’s phone number with not much more enticement than sounding so desperate.

“Justin…” she sighs.

“I just spent a week with Brian in New York and I know that he still loves me. I know you’re in a difficult position, but don’t you want him to be happy? I won’t tell him anything that you tell me. He’ll never know. I promise.”

She has to smile at that. He really is still like a tenacious teenager in some ways, who thinks that life will be great for everyone if people will just give him what he wants.

“What I was going to say was… if we do this, Justin, if I help you… we’ll have to be very careful. Brian will be fuming… but I’m sick of watching him being so miserable all the time. So I’m willing to risk it.”

Justin’s whole body sags in relief. “Thank you,” he says simply and breathes a few times to calm his nerves. “Can you tell me where he lives?”

“Actually, he doesn’t live anywhere.”

“What do you mean? He hardly sleeps under a bridge every night.”

“No, but try a hotel.”

“Even when he’s in Pittsburgh?”

“Even then. Mind you, he’s hardly ever here. There’s a business trip at least once a week, but this is the only fixed abode he’s had in the last three years.”

“That’s ridiculous. Why would he do that?”

Cynthia shrugs. “So he can move on if someone pesters him?”

“Fuck, he actually told me that he doesn’t live anywhere – and I didn’t believe him.”

 

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

 

**PART  SIX**

Justin spends almost two weeks at Britin without a single visitor. After the first two days he gives up on keeping his whereabouts from his mother and goes to visit her and Thomas at the new house they moved into at the beginning of the year. His mother is surprised to see him, which is no wonder since she was under the impression that he was still in New York. Justin would have kept it that way, but there’s always the slight chance that she’ll find out from Debbie that he’s in Pittsburgh and then she’ll be upset that he didn’t tell her.

So he reluctantly reveals the existence of the house to her, swearing her to secrecy although he doesn’t quite know why. It’s not as if the family ever meet up without an occasion anymore, so impromptu visits are somewhere between unlikely and improbable. Brian won’t care that people know about it, not now, and Justin doesn’t even tell his mom the exact address. She approves of him taking time out to recover and her only concern is that he’s alone out there and what would happen should he have a relapse.

By the Wednesday of the first week, Justin wishes that he’d told people where he is and that the gang were still living in each other’s pockets like they used to. The quiet emptiness of the house is nothing if not depressing. Even the fact that he can play his music at full blast for hours on end without any neighbors complaining – because there simply aren’t any neighbors close enough to care – is cause for discomfort rather than delight.

Cynthia has called to say that Brian’s changed his plans to return to Pittsburgh this week and has flown to Boston instead, where he’ll be pitching to a large client that Kinnetik's been after for some time. He’s not expected back until the following week now.

Justin explores the house and finds five empty rooms, as expected, and a studio, which he did _not_ expect. There are even some art supplies and the windows to improve the lighting, which he idly talked about once, have been fitted. He knows for a fact that this wasn’t here when they visited the last time and wonders when Brian had this done and why. Brian cut all contact shortly after their last visit and then just handed the house over to Justin a year later. Maybe it was a farewell present – although why Brian thought that Justin would want to live here without him, Justin cannot imagine.

So he moves the music center from the living room into the studio and paints. Nowadays he’s so busy with his studies and painting murals, that he doesn’t often have the leisure to create real paintings just as the mood strikes him. As always, it helps him think.

He’s really not the least bit further with his plans. Cynthia is no real help because her contact with Brian is mainly work related. She’ll be able to tell Justin which hotel Brian will be staying in while he’s in Pittsburgh, but how is that going to help him? If Brian doesn’t want to see Justin, he won’t. Justin already knows that Brian won’t shy away from setting security on him and every hotel has those.

His only chance to change Brian’s mind _is_ spending time with him. In his head he keeps going over the week they spent together in New York and he’s kicking himself for not making more of the opportunity. Suddenly he can think of a dozen things he should have done or said, but at the time he was too confused and too exhausted and, for the most part, too unsure of Brian’s feelings that he let all that precious time slip through his fingers.

Now Justin is sure that Brian still loves him. But that only means that he has loved him over the last three years as well and still he refused all contact with him. There must be a way to make Brian tell him the reason for that and once Justin knows the reason, he can set about refuting Brian’s arguments. But it still comes down to creating a situation where he can spend time with him.

On top of all that, he’s now under a time constraint. He needs to return to New York by the end of the month if he doesn’t want to lose this semester. The fees are too exorbitant to consider just blowing this term off and he's already contacted the university to rent one of the small apartments on campus. He never considered that before because he didn’t want to study and live in the same place. Luckily the dean is a great fan of his work and Justin’s getting preferential treatment.

So he has less than four weeks left to go after Brian. If he wants to start stalking him again, that’s really not enough time. He would happily spend longer on it if he could be sure of success. But he tried for a whole year before and it didn’t get him anywhere and if he puts his life on hold again, he may never be able to piece it back together. It’s a price worth paying if he ends up with Brian, but it’s too devastatingly high if he doesn’t.

He decides to rope in Emmett. It’s been a long time since Justin’s seen him because Emmett's become incredibly busy. It seems that the newest fad is having whatever you’re celebrating organized and catered by the guy who used to be the Queer Guy on TV. Emmett told Justin once that he never got laid with such regularity at Babylon as he could at breeder weddings.

But for the last six months, Emmett’s had a boyfriend, whom he met at one of his functions. That means that he’s withdrawn even further from the family. He receives Justin into his home and introduces him to Sebastian, who’s an architect and not much to look at. But Justin’s glad to see how happy they seem together.

Justin's sitting in their large apartment, which has a spectacular view over Pittsburgh, and drinks some strange concoction that Sebastian billed as tea but could be anything by the taste of it – or lack thereof. The talk meanders for a while before it gets around to the topic that’s brought Justin here. Sebastian takes Emmett’s cellphone, which has interrupted the conversation three times already, and saying, “I’ll look after your calls, Baby,” he leaves the room.

“He doesn’t like Brian?” Justin asks with a frown.

“He’s only met him once. Briefly. But he knows I'll cry.”

Fortunately, it’s not as bad as Emmett predicted. There’s only the occasional sniffle as he relates various encounters he’s had with Brian over the last three years, all of them at Babylon. None of it tells Justin anything new. Brian neither avoids Emmett, when he sees him, nor does Brian seek him out. They meet, they make shallow conversation and then they part.

“He always looks fabulous, you know,” Emmett says with a rueful smile. “He’s still got it. Still turning heads. Only to me, he just looks so sad.” There’s another sniffle. “What happened to us? Why couldn’t we keep it together after… after… we’re _family_. We’re supposed to stick together and help each other out. Now I only see Michael about twice a month, Teddy I haven’t seen since Easter and this is the first time I’ve seen you in God knows how long.”

Justin reckons it’s about a year. Just like Ted, Emmett never goes to Debbie’s dinners anymore, although probably not by choice. The special occasions that Debbie invites everyone to are usually busy times in the catering business. Everyone understands that, just like they understand why Ted never shows up anymore. Or Brian. And it’s not as if nobody’s worked out yet that Justin only turns up every time on the off-chance that Brian’s changed his mind.

The visit leaves him with an even more despondent feeling than he had before, but at least he elicits the promise that Emmett will text him the next time he sees Brian at Babylon. That makes two people that Justin has enlisted for his quest now. On his way home he drops in on Debbie and manages to persuade her to do the same for him at the diner.

It seems that everyone’s finally had enough and while they were all afraid for the longest time to anger Brian so much that he’ll freeze them out of his life, like he did with Justin, they’re now at a point where they’re willing to take a risk. Justin’s stalking will be a lot easier with a network of spies.

He’s very much aware that when he went after Brian the first time, when he was seventeen, it only worked because Brian colluded with him, while at the same time pretending that he was trying to get rid of him. If Brian really doesn’t want to see him, Justin has no chance. He knows this because he tried it before. And what’s worse is that, if Brian works out who’s supplying Justin with information, it might destroy the last fragile ties that keep Brian connected to his old life.

So Justin paints a lot and sleeps a lot and waits for a phone call, that doesn’t come until the Wednesday of the following week.

 _“He’s flying into Pittsburgh tomorrow,”_ Cynthia says. _"I’ve booked him into the Sheraton until Tuesday morning. Then he’s off to New York again. I don’t know what time he’ll arrive tomorrow. He arranged that flight himself. But he’ll be in the office all day Friday and all day Monday and possibly a few hours on Saturday as well._ ”

Justin thanks her and resolves to be at the airport by eleven o’clock the next day. Maybe he can persuade Brian to let Justin drive him to his hotel. It’s a hare-brained plan, but it’s a start. Only, Justin doesn’t know which flight Brian’s on, so he has to be there early to ensure that he won’t miss him. He reckons it won’t be before the afternoon anyway, otherwise Brian would be planning on being in the office in the afternoon, but he doesn’t want to take any chances. So eleven it is.

 

*

 

The next day Justin‘s up at nine o’clock, showered and ready half an hour later and is just having a quick bagel in the kitchen when he hears the housekeeper come in. He knows she comes every second week to check up on the place and clean what’s necessary. By next Saturday Justin will have been here for two weeks, so he’s been expecting her all week. There’s only today and tomorrow left for her. He’s trying desperately to remember her name because that'll go a long way to reassure her who he is, since they never met before.

He settles on Saunders, yes, he’s almost sure that her name is Mrs. Saunders; it was in the papers for the house that Ted gave him. She’ll have seen his car in the driveway, so he doesn’t need to worry about scaring her, but he hopes that there won’t be any complications, because he wants to leave for the airport as soon as possible. There’s a flight from Boston arriving at 10.37, which is the earliest one today, bar one at 7.23, which he dismissed as too early.  

Justin’s willing to hang about at the airport all day. There are four more flights from Boston after the 10.37 one, spread over the remainder of the day. It’ll cost him a small fortune in airport parking fees and will most likely be futile because all Brian has to do is ignore him and get into a taxi, but Justin has to do _some_ thing.

He rinses his cup and plate and puts everything into the dish washer. Then he goes out into the hall to greet the housekeeper, wondering if she works for him because he owns the house or for Kinnetik because they pay her. But he stops dead in the doorway, his breath and heart stuttering for a few moments. Because by the front door, in the process of loosening and taking off his tie, is Brian.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

Justin moves a few quick steps into the hall, which seems vast all of a sudden, because he wants to be closer in case Brian decides to bolt now that he’s seen Justin.

“What are you doing here?” Justin asks and wants to kick himself as soon as the words are out. It sounds unwelcoming, which isn’t his intention at all. He’s merely surprised – to say the least.

“I’ve come to see you.” Brian pulls in his lips and watches for his reaction.

“How did you know I was here?”

“Your mother told me. I think she felt she owed me a favor.”

Justin comes closer still and, because he’s worried that he might throw himself at Brian, he folds his arms across his chest and leans against the wall with one shoulder. Then he realizes how confrontational that looks and moves his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He’s trying to stay calm despite his heart beating in his throat and his palms turning sweaty.

There’s no reason to assume that Brian came for him. He hasn’t in three years, not without a damned good reason – like Justin being on the brink of death. And suddenly he dreads what Brian’s going to say to him. What if it’s something Brian has to say in person – because it’s too terrible to do it over the phone?

“Why…” Justin clears his throat. “Why did you want to see me?”

 

Brian looks at him and he knows, _knows,_ what Justin is thinking. “No,” he says, as if Justin asked the question. “I just wanted to make sure that you’re alright. I mean, after what happened with Owen.”

“After what _happened_?” Justin snorts, sounding relieved and angry at the same time. “You mean, after what you did.”

“Alright,” Brian admits. “After what I did.” He tries to look contrite, but he really doesn’t think what he did was wrong, so he fails miserably. Then he remembers Justin’s face when he saw him coming out of Owen’s bedroom. “I know you got hurt, but he really was an asshole.”

Brian expects an angry retort from Justin, accusing him of jealousy or arrogance or simply a general lack of morals, but Justin just gives him a soft smile. “Owen’s alright. He just wasn’t what you expected him to be.”

“Decent?” Brian supplies. “Faithful? Nice?”

“My boyfriend.”

He takes a moment to analyze what Justin said and how he said it and decides to believe him because there’s no hint of distress in his voice or in his features. Up until now Brian has assumed that Justin was in love with Owen and just didn’t dare admit it, in case Owen got spooked – because Brian thought that Owen was very much like he himself used to be. But it seems that he got it all wrong. And when he thinks about it, Justin’s behavior at the hotel was a pretty big clue. “So when you were upset at the apartment, it was because…”

Justin pushes off the wall and comes closer, close enough that Brian can smell his scent and he even imagines he can feel the heat of his body. Their eyes lock.

“It was because of you, Brian. I was jealous because he had you, not because you had him.” And with that Justin puts a hand on Brian’s neck and pulls him down into a kiss.

Brian doesn’t think he could resist if he wanted to. But, luckily, he doesn’t want to. For the first time in three long years he lets go, grabbing Justin and pulling him forcefully against his own body. Justin gives a little ‘oomph’ around his tongue, which is busy in Brian’s mouth, and wraps his other arm around Brian’s waist.

It’s a kiss that doesn’t seem to want to end, or rather, every time it does, they start up again as soon as their lips part. Brian moves his hand under Justin’s shirt and splays it against the smooth expanse of his back, stroking slowly up and down, just enjoying the feel of the soft skin. He’s missed this, a lot, and it’s time to stop fighting. After seeing Justin in New York, he knows it’s hopeless. It was a sign to stop trying to prevent the inevitable and to stop fooling himself that he can.

“Come to bed,” Justin whispers, stopping the kiss just long enough to get the words out.

Brian nods and they separate, hesitating for a moment, before starting to move towards the stairs at the same time. As they’re walking up the steps, he takes Justin’s hand because he’s done this ‘walking somewhere to find a place to fuck’ too many times with too many guys who meant nothing to him. That’s not what this is about. He has to get this right. His gesture earns him a bemused frown, a gentle smile and squeezed fingers.

In the bedroom, they come together immediately, kissing and groping and pulling at each other’s clothes. Only, Justin seems to be kind of desperate, wanting hard and fast, whereas Brian wants to re-discover and enjoy for as long as he can. Of course, his cock agrees with Justin and the first round is over way too quickly, but there’s nothing stopping them from doing this over and over again at different paces.

After round three or four – depending on your viewpoint – Brian is having a smoke, while Justin’s molded to his body, quite possibly stuck there semi-permanently by come and sweat. Because Justin has given up smoking, there’s no ashtray in the bedroom and Brian had to empty the condom packet. It’ll do for now.

“What made you change your mind?” Justin asks, his head on Brian’s shoulders and his hand smoothing along his chest. Brian snaps out of his reverie to a feeling of physical well-being so intense that he wonders how he ever survived without it.

“About what?”

“You told me you wouldn’t even speak to me if I called you and now you’re here. What made you change your mind?”

Brian shrugs. “Couldn’t leave things the way they were. I didn’t want you to think of me like that.” It’s always best to stick with the truth for as much as possible.

But Justin always hears more than he’s supposed to and he sits up sharply and glares at him. “So what is this? You give me a fuck so that I remember you like that and then you disappear again?”

“It was more like three fucks. Or more if you give me a little time.” Brian almost winces at the end of that remark because he knows that his attempt at levity will fall flat even as he’s saying the words.

“Don’t you dare, Brian,” Justin says warningly. “You disappear from my life again and I will hunt you down and this time I will hurt you.”

“Relax.” Brian puts out his arm to tug Justin back down, which he manages after some resistance. Enjoying the feel of the naked body against his own, he strokes Justin’s back and kisses his hair. “I promise I'll always talk to you from now on.”

“And will I see you as well?”

Little twat. Never satisfied with what he’s given. “Yes, you’ll see me. As long as we are… in the same place, you’ll see me.”

“So we’re back together?” Justin sounds strangely detached as if he’s asking if he should pick up the dry cleaning.

“If that’s what you want.” Brian’s tone matches Justin’s.

“Is it what _you_ want?”

How do you tell someone whom you’ve tried your hardest to avoid for three years, that you always wanted to be with him in the first place? You can’t. Especially not Justin, who never really lost his sense of entitlement despite all the attempts by homophobic pricks and asshole partners to rid him of it. So Brian simply says, “Yeah,” and can feel a shift in Justin’s body. A loss of tension. Maybe this will work for as long as Brian needs it to work.

 

*

 

Justin gets up when Brian gets up for work the next morning. The previous afternoon and night is a blur of fucking and sucking and even more kissing and their activity in the shower suggests that this will carry on for the foreseeable future. Having had only three hours sleep doesn’t make any difference to Brian’s appearance or his mood, but Justin misses the other five or six he usually has.

They have breakfast together and Brian tells him apologetically that he might be very late because he hasn’t been in the office for three weeks and there’s a lot of catching up to do. They part at the front door with Justin watching Brian’s rental car disappear down the driveway, not caring how domestic this looks and wondering if this is the last he’ll see of Brian despite his promise.

Justin doesn’t include stupidity among his shortcomings and he knows Brian like he knows no one else. After all, he studied him for a few years with great attention to detail when he was a teenager. Justin knows that something isn’t right – that Brian isn’t right. Brian’s always been a little volatile, but this turnaround from not ever wanting to see Justin again to turning up on his doorstep is drastic even by Brian’s standards.

Now that the sexual heat which always consumes them is abating, Justin becomes aware that they’re in the process of repeating tried and tested mistakes or rather, just the same one. When they started out, Justin somehow ended up living with Brian with no concept of what it might entail for either one of them and promptly got burned. The same happened after the bashing until they put down those pathetic rules. And after Ethan. And after LA. Why they ever thought that a promise not to play any violin music or an empty drawer would be sufficient is completely beyond him now.

Even the rules didn’t really mean anything because they didn’t include what Justin really wanted and Brian just gave him what was more or less his already anyway. All these things, these little gestures were more about an unspoken admittance of commitment on Brian’s part than about planning for a future together. In the long run, they only led to expectations on both sides that were unrealistic and misunderstood.

Justin won’t do that again. He’s tired of guessing and second guessing. As much as he’s afraid that Brian will simply disappear again if he pushes him too hard, he can’t live without getting some answers. When Brian turned up yesterday, ending up in bed five minutes later seemed like the natural way to go to ensure that Brian didn’t simply slip away again and it _was_ what Justin wanted. But he needs to know what they’re doing and fucking at every opportunity is not a sufficient game plan for once. Brian managed to give voice to his wishes and feelings once before, he’ll have to do it again. And if he prefers to take flight again instead, then Justin will hunt him down and _make_ him talk.

He lies on the couch for an hour and ponders what he wants from Brian. All this time he thought that if he could just be with him again, everything else would fall into place. But now he knows that it won’t. For starters, there are two things Justin doesn’t want to live without: Brian and New York. If he has to make a choice, New York will fall be the wayside, but wouldn’t that be repeating one of their mistakes again? No, he really needs to find out what Brian’s plans are and then he can adjust his own accordingly or get Brian to adjust his. Then he laughs out loud into the quiet of the room. Get Brian to adjust? What a ludicrous idea!

At ten o’clock he gets a phone call from Cynthia.

“ _He’s here,”_ she says quietly. _“But he asked me to cancel his hotel reservation, so I don’t know what’s going on.”_

Justin tells her that he already knows and that Brian’s staying with him.

“ _Really?”_ Her voice sounds a little incredulous and he realizes straight away that it’s not because she doubts his words as such.

“Why?”

_“Well, I thought if you were back together, he would be more…”_

“More what?”

_“I really don’t know. Happier maybe? He seems the same.”_

Justin can hear disappointment in her voice and feels a low-grade anger stirring inside him. People always expect miracles from him where Brian is concerned. It’s as if after managing to get Brian to propose to him, everybody thinks Justin can get him to do anything. They have no idea how hard those years were, when every little step forward in their relationship had to be fought for with gritted determination and paid for with gut-wrenching heartache. What seemed easy to Michael and the rest of them, was hard work for Justin. Not to mention that Justin ended up being the only one who stayed banished from Brian’s life when he returned from wherever it was that he went.

Justin’s just starting to say something along those lines – politely because he’s well aware of how much Cynthia's courting Brian’s wrath by conspiring with him – when she interrupts him with a hurried, _"Gotta go."_ and severs the connection.

Justin looks up at the ceiling and contemplates going back to bed. If Brian comes home late tonight, there’s no telling what time Justin will get to sleep. He smiles when he realizes how quickly he’s fallen back into thinking of Brian’s return as ‘coming home’ and wonders if Brian feels the same way. But before Justin can make a decision about what he wants to do, he hears the front door open and a female voice calling out a half-questioning ‘hello’.

The housekeeper’s name turns out to be Mrs. Appleby, but that’s only because she’s taken over from her mother, whose name is Sanders, so he was almost right. Justin doesn’t feel comfortable going back to bed with a stranger in the house, nor would he be able to concentrate on painting in his studio. So he sits on the big couch in the living room and makes a start on the graphics for the next _Rage_ issue, while listening to faint noises of running water, clinking dishes and the vacuum cleaner humming for three hours. At least, Michael will be pleased if Justin can finish the panels while he’s in Pittsburgh.

 

*

 

Brian decides to go home half an hour after Cynthia left. He’s the last one at Kinnetik except for the security guard, who holds the outer door open for him. Brian hesitates, trying to remember the guy’s name. John, he thinks, or maybe Sean.

“You know Justin Taylor?” he asked.

The guard seems a little uncomfortable when he gives a sharp nod, which tells Brian that Justin‘s been to Kinnetik at some stage in the recent past. Of course, he has. The little twat never gives up. “I want you to let him in from now on. Free access. Tell your colleagues as well.”

“Of course, Mr. Kinney. I’ll make sure everyone’s informed.”

“You do that. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Mr. Kinney, and have a nice weekend.”

“You, too.”

The drive out to the house – Brian can never bring himself to call it Britin – is uneventful and once he’s out of the city, he finds it rather pleasant. He knows that Justin doesn’t really like it out here. He never did. The silence freaks him out. Brian wonders how long it’ll take Justin to sell the place and why he‘s hung on to it until now. Justin couldn’t have been just a sentimental fool, could he? Well, maybe he is. Brian likes to think so at least. There’s something heart-warming in Justin’s refusal to ever give up.

He stops his car by the roadside about two miles from the house, lighting a cigarette and taking a short break to prepare himself. In front of him is that sharp bend that looks a lot less pronounced than it really is, with the large oak tree at the side. At this time of year the leaves are starting to turn to their autumnal colors and it’s an incredibly beautiful sight, all the more so for being the only tree in the immediate vicinity. Brian watches the road while he smokes but no more than three cars pass him altogether. He glances at the time – half past nine – and starts the car to travel the rest of the way.

Justin’s not coming out to greet him in the hall, as Brian half-expected him to, and he finds him sitting in the living room with his feet on the couch and a sketch pad on his knees. It looks like Justin had a productive day. There are sketches strewn everywhere.

“Hey,“ Brian says and folds his suit jacket neatly over the back of the armchair, followed by his tie, before he sits down at the other end of the couch. “How was your day, dear?”

Justin gives a crooked smile and Brian can’t tell if it’s because he finds the familiar joke endearing or tiring. He notices the fact that Justin’s not diving onto him with a small pang of disappointment. Justin’s no longer the teenage boy who would be ready and waiting for him whenever he got home. Part of Brian acknowledges this as a good thing, while the other part misses the bounciness that was once Justin’s trademark and he wonders if this development is due to Brian’s behavior in the past or a natural part of growing up. He hopes it’s the latter.

He frees his shirt from the confines of his pants and unbuttons it all the way down. He really should get changed, but he sees Justin licking his lips involuntarily at the sight. It must be a Pavlovian response to seeing Brian’s naked skin because it’s not followed by the lad getting naked and his eyes give no indication that he wants Brian to do so either. Brian’s amused by his own body’s response to Justin’s glistening lips. They’re two of a kind after all.

“Brian?” Justin says, looking down at his hand, which is twirling his pencil in a perpetual circle around his index finger. It looks like a move perfected by long hours of practice. Brian stares at it as well, preparing himself for a talk that he’s known all along to be inevitable. His mind is frantically scrambling around for a way to derail this conversation before it has a chance to leave the station, never mind crash and burn.

“Hhm?”

“Where did you go? I mean, when you disappeared for those two months that time, where did you go?”

Brian keeps looking at the twirling pencil and tries to remain calm. This isn’t too bad. There are worse questions Justin could be asking.

“When I woke up, I was in a motel in Cincinnati. I assume that I was there most of that time. I really don’t remember.”

“How convenient.”

“Justin.” Brian pinches the bridge of his nose to collect himself and then looks at Justin. “I remember being at Babylon and this guy I was fucking told me that he just popped in for a quick fuck and that he was on his way to see his parents in Cincinnati. I asked him to give me a ride and took all the cash from the club. And since Cincinnati is where I woke up, it stands to reason that I was there the whole time.”

“Why didn’t you come home when you woke up?”

“I did. This was two months later.” He can see Justin snort derisively. “I was drunk and high practically the whole time. I always made sure I had a bottle of Beam by the bed for when I woke up. Only, that morning I barfed. And I just couldn’t drink anymore.” It’s the honest truth, no matter how contrived it sounds.

“Were you with that trick the whole time?”

“What? No. I’m pretty sure I was alone mostly – when I didn’t go out to fuck and score more drugs and booze.”

“Why?”

Brian stares at him. He can’t believe Justin’s even asking.

“Do you have any idea how worried we all were about you?” Justin says, anger vibrating in his voice.

Brian still doesn’t say anything. Even Debbie didn’t admonish him when he came back. She just enfolded him in her arms, kissed his cheek and made him eat Lasagna. It was the last time he went to her house, too. He can’t bear being in that place where everything reminds him, just as he can’t bear staying at the loft.

“Do you have any idea what we went through?” Justin says, louder now, throwing his pencil across the room.

“I think I had an excuse to go off the rails,” Brian says a little heatedly, trying desperately to stop his own anger from surfacing more than it already has.

“Nobody’s denying that. But we were all hurting. And we were all there to help, but, no, you had to be a drama queen and make it all ten times worse for everyone.”

“ _Drama queen_?” Brian asks, incensed now.

“Okay, sorry, bad choice of word. But you ran away, Brian! And you didn’t care about anyone else!”

“No, I fucking didn’t.” Brian's close to shouting now.

“Of course, you didn’t!” Justin shouts at him. “Why would you let someone help you? You’re Brian Kinney! Disappearing for two months and piling all that worry onto the people who love you, on top of everything else they’re going through was a much better way to cope with everything.”

“What _you_ were going through?” Brian is out of his seat in a flash because shouting is so much more effective when it’s done from a superior position and he can’t sit still any longer anyway. “What _you_ were going through? How about what _I_ was going through? I LOST MY SON, FOR FUCK’S SAKE!”

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

 

**PART SEVEN**

There’s complete silence for a few moments and some remote part of Justin’s brain wonders how they ended up in a shouting match less than five minutes after Brian got home. He didn’t exactly plan it this way. It was all meant to be a simple conversation that would give him the answers he needs. But his head is full of memories that he’s tried hard to forget for the past three years and it’s making him upset and angry.

There’s Debbie’s face when she got the phone call at the diner, where Justin was visiting her on one of his frequent trips back from New York. He can still hear her voice, strangely subdued like he’d never heard her before but has a lot since that day. “There’s been an accident. Lindsay and Gus are dead. A truck crashed into their car.”

He remembers that all he could think of was Brian, how running all the way from the diner to the loft was helping him not get snowed under by grief and how, when he got there, he had somehow expected that Brian already knew. But, of course, he didn’t. How could he? In situations like these everybody always goes with their first instinct. Michael's was to rush to see his daughter, who’d been sleeping peacefully in her bed with Melanie downstairs, working from home. Debbie was on her way over there as well.

So it was up to Justin to tell Brian, only, he couldn’t get the words out properly. And Brian looked at his stuttering account uncomprehendingly for the longest time, until Justin realized that he needed to say it, and that he needed to be unambiguous about it for it to sink in. And saying the word ‘dead’ brought it home to himself as well, more than hearing it from Debbie had. He burst into tears on the spot, half because of his own pain and half because of Brian’s.

And Brian didn’t say anything. Nothing at all. He nodded and turned away and sank heavily into a seat. Justin wanted to hug him, comfort him in any way he could and, yes, _taking_ some comfort, too, but Brian just put out his hand warningly when Justin approached.

And that was how it stayed. From the moment he was told to the day of the funeral, Brian barely spoke, moved only when it was unavoidable, ate and drank what Justin put in front of him and smoked without any discernible break. On one of those days, he never got out of bed at all, although he didn’t seem to actually sleep much.

Justin was waiting for the acting out, the booze, the drugs, the trips to the baths, but none of that came. What also didn’t come was a lowering of the defenses, a chance for Justin to get closer, to provide some comfort, even if only by being physically close. His anxiety over Brian overrode his own grief for the time being and in some weird way he was grateful for that.

On the day of the funeral, Brian got up, showered, shaved and got dressed in his best suit. He drove them to the church and sat silently in his seat, stony-faced, his eyes glued to the two coffins in the front.

Melanie looked like she’d aged ten years over the last few days, but seemed as stoic as Brian was. About halfway through the service, JR started crying and wouldn’t stop despite being passed from her mother to her grandmother to her father. In the end, Justin’s mom got up, took her off Michael and went outside with her for the rest of the proceedings.

At the graveside, just after the small ceremony there was finished, Melanie finally collapsed onto the damp grass and cried like Justin had never seen anyone before. And that was when Brian finally snapped.

“Will you shut up, you stupid bitch! If you weren’t such a cunt, we wouldn’t be here.” It came out more vicious than even Justin had ever heard Brian talk to anyone. It was true that Lindsay was on her way to see Brian after an argument with Melanie, but that didn’t mean that it was Mel’s fault. It wasn’t as if nobody else ever had arguments that caused one of them to storm out. And it wasn’t even as if Lindsay made a mistake in her worked up state. Or that the truck driver made a mistake when he ran the red light; he simply had a heart attack at the wrong time, if there ever is a right time to have one of those. It was just a chain of unfortunate circumstances.

Brian stalked off and Justin has since had ample opportunity to regret the minute or so he took to put a hand on Melanie’s shoulder and tell her that Brian was just upset, and that he didn’t mean it, that nobody blamed her and that she didn’t deserve to be treated like that today of all days. By the time Justin made it to the parking lot, Brian was already gone. And Justin didn’t see more than glimpses of him until the day he woke up in the hospital in New York three years later.

Justin tries to shut down the memories that are flooding him.

“Yes, you did,” he says, still angry, but less so already. He knows that if Brian had come back to him after those two months, he wouldn’t have said a single word of reprimand. It’s the intervening time that made his anger fester. He gets up from the couch, but he doesn’t approach Brian. “You lost your son. But we all lost someone that day. Maybe none of us knows what it was like for you, except maybe Melanie. But we were all hurting and it would’ve been much easier if you didn’t make it worse by disappearing. And quite frankly, Brian, what you said to Melanie at the funeral was unforgivable.”

It feels good to finally let his anger out, to say the words that he’s kept in his head for three long years.

“Well, don’t worry, I don’t want her forgiveness,” Brian sneers. “So I’m a selfish asshole. Is anyone surprised?”

There‘s another long pause, in which Justin feels his anger drain away somehow. “To be honest, yes,” he says gently. “I was _very_ surprised. Because you weren’t like that anymore. If you ever really were.”

“Maybe you just never knew me, Sunshine.”

Justin huffs a mirthless laugh. “Oh, I know you, Brian.” He steps forward and he can feel Brian wanting to retreat but standing his ground nonetheless because that is what he does. Brian Kinney doesn’t back down, ever. Justin puts his hand on Brian’s chest, feeling a wild heartbeat there and then he just wraps his arms around his waist and rests his cheek against his shoulder, skin on skin. He waits for Brian to put his arms around him, which he does eventually, one arm around Justin’s shoulders, one hand in his hair.

“I just wanted to be there for you,” Justin says quietly. “I thought we were in a place where you‘d allow me to do that. And then, when you disappeared, I thought you were dead, especially after seeing the loft.”

 

Brian relishes the feel of having a handful of Justin’s hair between his fingers and rubbing his scalp with his fingertips. It’s the little things that he missed. He can understand what Justin's saying. Hasn’t he himself worried about Justin in one way or another, if not from the very beginning, then at least since the prom? He remembers what it was like fearing that he might be dead – vividly. If there’s one thing he regrets, it’s putting Justin through those weeks of frantic worry. Putting anybody through that.

But Brian wasn’t lying when he said that he remembers next to nothing of that time. From the moment he left the funeral to his first phone call to Cynthia weeks later, everything’s a blur. The guilt and the pain that he carries around with him to this day sent him on a self-destructive downward spiral for two months of booze, drugs and sex, that even now makes him wonder how he survived. He was reckless, courting destruction and still he didn’t die. So when he had his first lucid moment at the end of those weeks, he reckoned that if Fate had decided not to kill him when he provided every opportunity, there must be a reason for that. There were things to do. He had to get his life in order.

That morning, finding himself in a cheap motel in Cincinnati with no recollection of how long he’d been there and only vaguely remembering how he got there in the first place, Brian called Cynthia and told her that he was coming back to work. When he got back to Pittsburgh the next day, he found his family frantic with worry – to the point of having involved the police, who, predictably, had laughed in their faces – and Kinnetik in disarray. So he avoided the family’s recriminations and vowed that, next time, Kinnetik would be in great shape – one that would be sustainable to some extent without him.

He’s given himself until his fortieth birthday. No one can ask more than that of him and if they do, they’re shit out of luck. And at the back of his mind, there’s always the nagging doubt that he may be wrong, that even withdrawing from the family to a mere acquaintance level may not be enough to keep them safe. He knows there’s a price to pay – there’s always a price to pay.

Brian is aware how toxic he is to everyone in his life, always has been. His parents never stopped telling him how he was everything that was wrong in their lives and even his friends did occasionally, by calling him an asshole – not that it was ever undeserved. Except Justin. Justin always acknowledged Brian’s faults but gave the impression that he thought they were unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Justin made Brian feel like his faults were forgivable and like he could do anything.

And therein the danger lay. Brian became complacent and smug. He was showing the world how you can flaunt every rule in the book and be as brazen as you like and still come out on top, quite literally in his case. He dared fate, as he’d dared God when he was younger, until fate turned around and showed him his place. And he’s learned his lesson. He accepts now that some things will never change. All he wants to do now, desperately, is keep safe the people he loves. If his punishment is having those people taken away, then surely giving them up voluntarily will remove them from danger. It’s hard, but you really don’t bargain with Fate for whatever it is that you need, and you don’t expect it not to hurt. You have to offer something in return. He offered Justin and so far it’s worked.

But maybe having Justin thrown back into his path was another cruel test. Maybe going to the hospital was a complete failure; the only thing he’s certain of is that it was a sign of some sort. For a while he thought that if he took care of Justin but still left at the end, the deal was still on. Of course, you never know what Fate has in store for you and it’s not as if anything has ever been spelled out to him in so many words. Brian just knows that in the long run you have to pay for everything and if you get things you don’t deserve and aim to keep them, they’ll be taken away or sometimes you’ll be left to watch _them_ suffer for _your_ greed.

Now he thinks that maybe he wasn’t supposed to go to the hospital, that maybe that was the real test, to see if he would stick to his resolve. But he had no choice. He simply _had_ to go. And knowing that it would be twice as hard to go back to living without Justin after seeing him, he thought that perhaps that would be punishment enough to balance out his slip-up. But it isn’t. It isn’t twice as hard, twice he could bear – maybe.

When Brian flew from New York to Denver two weeks ago, he was determined to pick up where he left off before Jennifer’s phone call. Until then, he had a plan. He’s less than two years away from his fortieth birthday. By that time he will leave Kinnetik in such shape that it can be run by Cynthia, kept financially straight by Theodore and supplied with the innovative ideas that the clients are accustomed to by a group of account managers whom he has hand-picked and is training up for just that purpose. Sure, some customers will leave, but Kinnetik will stay afloat. He owes this to his dream and to the people who give their all for the agency.

When he was still in Denver, he got a phone call from Mitch Barron of Barron Industries to come to Boston for a pitch and when he watched his new client sign the contract a few days later – a contract that Brian knew would catapult Kinnetik into the top league – he decided that enough was enough. Bagging the multimillion dollar contract, all he felt was a vague satisfaction for achieving his goal after trying for over a year, but he couldn’t quite work up any enthusiasm. And that was when he knew what seeing Justin again had been a sign for.

“I wasn’t thinking straight,” he says, remembering what this weekend’s all about.

“I know,” Justin says. “I forgave you a long time ago.”

Brian feels a strange sense of relief to hear that. Unlike Melanie, how Justin feels about him is actually important to Brian, partly because he knows that it’s important for Justin’s well-being that he doesn’t hate Brian. And quite frankly, Brian has long forgiven Melanie for her part in what happened, too. He knows he was just lashing out at the most convenient target at the funeral. He would never apologize to Melanie, but as he hasn’t seen her since then, there was never any need or occasion for that anyway.

Justin moves his head a little, the light stubble on his face scraping pleasantly against Brian’s skin, and kisses Brian’s chest just above his nipple. But if Brian thinks this is pre-cursor to more, he finds out how very mistaken he is a moment later, when Justin moves out of his arms and steps back a little.

“What I can’t forgive you for is that you never came back to me. You went to see Debbie and Michael, but you wouldn’t even take my calls. There was a security guard stopping me from getting into Kinnetik. What the fuck, Brian? I had no clue what was going on. What did I do that was so terrible? I waited for you. And what did you do? You snuck into the loft when I wasn’t there and got all your stuff. And then you rented it out without telling me. Why? What did I do?”

“You didn’t do anything.” Brian would give anything for this conversation to be over already. But isn’t this what he came here for? To give Justin some well-deserved answers? “When I left the funeral, I was angry. Before that, I could pretend that it wasn’t happening. But afterwards I was so fucking angry. At everyone and everything. I broke some stuff at the loft and when that didn’t help, I went to the baths and then to Babylon. But that didn’t help either. I could have just as easily beaten the crap out of the tricks as fucking them. I was… concerned what I might be capable of.”

 

Justin remembers coming back to the loft after waiting at Debbie’s for over an hour after the funeral until he finally realized that Brian wasn’t coming. He remembers his shock at seeing the broken lamps and the shards of what was once the Mies van der Rohe coffee table. His anxiety went through the roof at that point. But he’s had a lot of time to think since then. And he’s done a lot of reading.

“Anger is part of the grieving process, Brian. It’s normal. I know you wouldn’t have hurt me. Or anyone else. That’s not you.”

Brian shrugs as if he isn’t so sure about that.

“We’re not talking about that anyway,” Justin continues. “We’re talking about what happened after you came back. After you got it all out of your system. Why was I the only one you didn’t want to talk to?”

“You weren’t.”

“That’s funny because it looks to me like you checked in with everyone but me.”

Brian looks pained and part of Justin can appreciate how hard this is for him. And some other part of him, the part that’s still hurt and angry, wants it to be hard. Because Brian deserves at least that much for the three years of hell he’s put Justin through.

“I went to see them because I knew they wouldn’t leave me alone if I didn’t. I asked them for some space and they agreed. And that hasn’t really changed. I see them once in a while so that they don’t bother me. I keep sending Michael postcards when I’m away on business so that he doesn’t call me.”

Suddenly Justin is glad that it was Michael who got the postcards. What seemed like token of affection at first is really just a ploy to keep Michael at arm’s length. Justin is surprised that it didn’t occur to him when he first saw them. It’s such an un-Brian-like thing to do that he should have known that it’s all just part of a bigger plan. And Justin has to admit that if _he_ got those postcards, he'd never have left Brian alone. Brian was quite right in thinking that it would have been impossible to keep _Justin_ at arm’s length. It’s always all or nothing with them.

“Why?” Justin asks, finding himself wanting to vent his anger less and less and simply needing to understand. “Why did you not want to see us anymore? We’re your family. Do you have new friends now?”

Brian snorts. “That would defeat the purpose.”

“So, there _is_ a purpose?”

Brian shrugs. “I couldn’t bear to be in the old places. I went to Debbie’s house and everywhere I looked…”

Justin nods. He felt the same way for the longest time. After Melanie and Lindsay came back from Canada, there’d been a lot of dinners at Debbie’s and the memories of Gus and Lindsay there is one of the reasons that the get-togethers have dwindled to special occasions. And even those are now more like real family dinners, with Debbie and Michael and their spouses and children. As JR’s mother, Melanie's become deeply embedded in the Novotny family, almost like a daughter-in-law. Justin often feels like an outsider now, especially since he only comes for visits and the rest of them see each other on a daily basis.

“So you avoided going to the usual places and because they reminded you of Gus and Lindsay?”

“Pretty much.”

“And the loft? Gus was hardly ever at the loft.”

“But you were.”

“So you avoided the loft because it reminded you of me. Which brings us back to my question: why _were_ you avoiding me?”

Brian exhales heavily and walks over to his suit jacket to dig out his cigarettes. Justin watches him shake one out and light it and has to brace himself not to go over there to shake the answer out of Brian. He wonders fleetingly what he would do if Brian turned around now and started to leave. He thinks it’s quite possible that he would turn violent in that case. He _needs_ to know.

Brian moves over to where the ashtray is on the side table and Justin pivots on the spot to keep his eyes on his face. He doesn’t want to miss anything.

“I had it all, Justin. Success, money, a family, you… and then Gus and Lindsay… “ He falters and then takes a deep breath. “I could _never_ go through that again.”

Justin is struck by the fact that even after all this time, Brian still can’t say the words. It reveals more to him than any lengthy explanation ever could.

“You pushed me away because you were scared of losing me?” It comes out so incredulous that it borders on mocking. Justin is aware that he’s close to hysterical laughter. All this time Brian kept away from him because he couldn’t bear the thought of losing him? That would make sense only in Brian’s twisted brain.

“Kinda,” Brian admits. “It’s not so far-fetched, don’t you think? I mean, you always seem to be in the firing line of all the homophobic pricks out there.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, Brian. If I’m to die,” – he ignores Brian’s wince – “then wouldn’t it make more sense to want to spend as much time as possible with me before it’s too late?”

Brian rolls in his lips and stares at Justin’s feet.

“Brian?... If you’re worried about me, wouldn’t it make more sense to stay close and keep an eye on me? How’s staying away from me going to prevent my death?”

Brian winces again, takes another drag from his cigarette and then looks at Justin, the exhaled smoke obscuring his features ever so slightly. He holds Justin’s eyes but doesn’t say anything.

In his time with Brian Justin had to make a lot of leaps of faith, but there have also been leaps of understanding. He had to get used to taking tiny clues and work out Brian’s convoluted logic from there. Most of the time, Justin thinks Brian is full of shit, but Brian is who he is and Justin has accepted that there are some things that he cannot change, just understand and work with. So he suddenly – finally – understands what this is all about and it hits him like a physical blow, twisting his stomach in pain and compassion.

“Oh my God! You’re still bargaining! You think the accident was some kind of punishment. For what? For being happy? And this is some kind of deal that you made, isn’t it? You think that if you sacrifice yourself, you can keep me safe. Jesus, Brian, that’s the most fucked up thing you’ve ever come up with!”

Brian averts his eyes, stubs out his cigarette in the ashtray and stays resolutely silent.

Sighing, Justin steps closer and wraps his arms around Brian’s waist. He leans back a little, trying to look into Brian’s eyes, but Brian has focused his gaze somewhere on the wall behind Justin.

“Look at me,” Justin says gently.

Brian’s eyes dart this way and that before he complies eventually.

“It was an accident! It had nothing to do with you. It wasn’t your fault and it wasn’t punishment. It was a random event in a world full of random events. Not everything’s about you. If it was some kind of punishment, what did the rest of us get punished for? What did Melanie get punished for? You got to stop this shit! You have to finish grieving. You have to accept what happened and start living again. It wasn’t your fault!”

He can see that Brian’s not convinced, but at least he’s listening.

“You can’t bargain with God or Fate or whatever. It’s bullshit. You did all this for three years and I still ended up in hospital. If you take your logic to the extreme, I would have died the minute you came to the hospital. And I didn’t! Because it was just another random event. Not God. Not Fate. Just a virus. It happens. And I survived. So the spell’s broken. You have to stop thinking this way.”

“I was a shitty father,” Brian argues.

“That’s bullshit. You helped Melanie and Lindsay have a child when you didn’t really want one. You were just meant to be a sperm donor and then you became so much more. You were there for every birthday, even the one when he was in Toronto. You helped them move back to Pittsburgh because you missed Gus. You gave them oodles of money so that Gus wouldn’t want for anything. So maybe you would never have taken him to a game, but my dad did that and I can tell you now, it means squat. In the long run, you gave him something more important. You loved him unconditionally and that would never have changed. And Gus knew that. He never doubted that you loved him. It was obvious from the way he was around you. That makes you a great dad.”

“You don’t know that. You don’t know what would have happened further down the road.”

“No, I don’t. That’s true. But I know you. And I know that when you love someone, you don’t hold back. Not on the inside. That’s why you stuck with Michael all this time even though you’ve outgrown him a long time ago. Because you love people unconditionally. If you didn’t, I wouldn’t still be around. You forgave me everything I ever put you through. You would have done the same with Gus.”

Brian puts his hand back in Justin’s hair, flexing his fingers a little to rub the tips against Justin’s scalp. “I love you,” he says softly and it’s both the right and the wrong answer. 

 

*

 

Brian keeps his eyes closed for a minute, basking in that tired and only half-awake state that always lures him into thinking that there may be some more sleep to be had. But then his consciousness cranks up a notch and slams him into wide awake from one second to the next and he knows that his night is over. He opens his eyes.

Justin’s lying on his stomach, his arms hugging the pillow, his hair in a tangled mess, snoring lightly. Brian smiles and props his head onto his hand, watching him. He can’t shake a tiny stab of disappointment and realizes that, irrationally, he expected Justin to cure him of his insomnia instantly, just by being there. But this is the second night that he’s woken up after his usual quota of three to four hours sleep and he’s admonishing himself for even thinking something that ridiculous. He runs a finger along Justin’s spine, barely touching the skin, right down to the crack of his ass.

“Don’t you ever sleep?” Justin mumbles half into the pillow.

Brian smiles. “Sleep’s overrated.”

Justin snorts and turns onto his back without opening his eyes. “I’ll just pretend that I’m still asleep. But do carry on.”

Brian doesn’t need to be told twice.

 

*

 

“So what’s the deal with the not sleeping?” Justin asks at the breakfast table.

Brian digs into the egg white omelets he’s made for both of them and that Justin rejected with a mocking sneer before making himself a fully loaded one.

“Insomnia.”

“Proper insomnia?” Justin asks, looking up, his face showing deep concern.

Brian shrugs and carries on eating.

“How long have you had it?”

Brian shrugs again. He thinks the answer to that question should be fairly obvious and, apparently, so does Justin, because he nods a few times in understanding.

“Nothing helps?”

“Drugs, if I take enough to be _this_ close to an overdose. Medication, if I don’t mind feeling like a zombie the next day.”

“Sounds positively awful.”

“It’s an acquired taste,” Brian agrees. It comes out jokingly, but he’s quite serious. Over the last three years his sleep deprivation has turned out to be a blessing in disguise. He’s always tired and his senses are perpetually numb. It takes all his concentration to stay sharp at work, which affords him little time to think about anything else. Everything takes longer, but then again, he has more waking hours now. When he’s not working, he often finds his mind drift off into nothingness. It’s not entirely unpleasant.

“You get delusions and hallucinations from insomnia, you know.”

“And how did I know you’d know something like that?” 

Justin laughs a little and drops the subject but Brian knows that he hasn’t heard the last of it. Justin can never leave well enough alone and Brian isn’t sure if he finds that annoying or comforting.

In the late afternoon, he drives into town to see Michael. Having to reveal to Justin that the ‘vette was stored at the house all this time makes Brian a little uncomfortable. This is Justin’s house and has been for nearly two years and Brian thinks that maybe he should have asked his permission to use the garage. It was simply the best place he could think of that felt completely safe and wouldn’t cost him a small fortune in parking fees because of his frequent absences from Pittsburgh. Justin just smiles and runs a loving hand over the hood of the car like he’s greeting an old friend.

 

*

 

Michael is at the store and lets him in with a smile that’s part surprise, part delight and part trepidation. Brian gives him a short hug and kisses him on the lips. Michael misses that, misses seeing Brian every day, even though his own life has become so busy that he probably wouldn’t have time for that anyway. But on the few occasions that he does see Brian, he somehow misses him more than when he _doesn’t_ see him. He can’t get his head around that one.

They talk about their respective work, while Michael is perched on the counter, drinking the Starbucks coffee that Brian brought for both of them and Brian leafs idly through some of the new releases on the rotary stand. Brian asks about Debbie and listens to her exploits with apparent amusement. Michael always finds his mother funnier in hindsight. Usually what she does makes him cringe when he’s actually there. But Brian's always had this appreciation for Debbie that comes easily when you’re not actually related to her, although Michael acknowledges that Brian is as good as. Or was, at least. Michael used to take pleasure in that.

He skirts awkwardly around the subjects he thinks he should be avoiding around Brian. It seems cruel to him to talk about JR in front of Brian and as she fills up so much of his time and is part of every aspect of his life now, it’s a difficult undertaking. And he doesn’t talk about Melanie, whom he sees more than he ever thought possible, and just to be safe, he excludes Hunter as much as possible, too. Of course, he can’t talk about _Rage_ much either because that would involve talking about Justin and Michael is pretty sure that wouldn’t be a good idea for altogether different reasons. Or maybe they’re basically the same reasons, all of them relating to a loss Michael doesn’t want to remind Brian of.

So their conversation ambles along leisurely, though not quite comfortably, and every now and then, Michael falters because he becomes aware that he’s just about to stray into forbidden territory and he can’t quite divert from there without an uncomfortable pause, although they’ve become shorter over time as Michael’s had more practice. He sometimes wonders if they'd disappear altogether if Brian would allow them to spend more time together, but he knows deep down that things will never be the same – for any of them.

“How’s JR?” Brian finally asks.

Michael stares at him, taken aback by the question, which is the first time ever that Brian has asked about his daughter. “Uhm… fine.”

If Michael was talking to anybody else, he would jammer on about his little princess and bring out the photos he has tucked away in his wallet. But he’s talking to Brian and Brian can no longer be burdened with parental bliss – even when it was Brian who asked the question in the first place.

When there’s a light tapping on the glass of the door, Michael is almost relieved, although he really should finish sorting his invoices and more visitors can only mean more delays. His heart stops a beat when he sees Justin through the glass and his head whips around to look at Brian with a panicked expression. “I didn’t know he was coming, I swear,” he splutters.

“Relax, Mikey.” Brian walks over to the door and turns the lock, leaving Justin to let himself in, while Brian idles back to the counter.

“What’s going on?” Michael says, forgetting to return Justin’s hello and noticing the distinct lack of greeting between his two visitors, which speaks of a recent encounter rather than frosty ignoring. Looking from one to the other, relief is giving way to something akin to annoyance. Why doesn’t anybody ever bother to keep him in the loop?

Justin just smiles that smug smile that he has when things are going well with Brian.

“We’ve gotta go,” is all the explanation Brian provides and Michael slides off the counter to follow them to the door, intending to lock it behind them.

“You wanna come to Babylon tonight?” Brian asks out of the blue, just inside the doorway.

“Can’t,” Michael says. “It’s my…” He falters and looks at Justin beseechingly, but finds only a somewhat annoyed stare. “…weekend with JR,” he finishes quickly and in such a low voice that both Brian and Justin probably have trouble hearing him. Michael sincerely wishes that the worst he can expect were still being mocked by Brian, not hurting him.

Brian slings his arm over Michael's shoulder and kisses him again. “Enjoy it,” he says pointedly. He cards his other hand through Michael’s hair, still keeping him in his embrace, and murmurs almost like an afterthought, “I love you. Always have.”

Not having heard the words for three years, Michael almost misses his cue. “Always will,” he then says in a rush, while Brian is already making his way outside. For the first time ever, Michael feels guilty saying these words in front of Justin, but Justin is just watching Brian with a tilted head and a speculative look. Brian slings his arm over Justin’s shoulder and they both give a short wave before walking away. Michael stares after them, a little stunned by the whole encounter. Then he decides to leave the invoices until Monday and go home. As always he tries not to think about the fact that it could have just as easily been Melanie and JR instead of Lindsay and Gus.

 

On hearing Brian’s question, Justin, who’s already out on the sidewalk, turns to look at him questioningly. He didn’t know they were going to Babylon, but he thinks it might be fun. He hasn’t been to the club in a long time.

There’s something weird going on between Michael and Brian. Justin is well aware by now that their relationship was only marginally better than his and Brian’s over the last three years, but Brian is weirdly soft and gentle with Michael and that doesn’t tally with what Brian said about keeping Michael at arm’s length. No way would Michael have let him withdraw to the degree that he did, if Brian had treated him like this all along.

Justin also doesn’t like that Michael stumbles over his words whenever he talks about JR. He knows that it’s just Michael's own brand of consideration, but if this is what everybody's been doing around Brian, then it’s no wonder that he’s managed to repress what he didn’t want to deal with. Justin wouldn’t have allowed him to do that – which, Justin supposes, is another reason Brian froze him out of his life.

They drop Brian’s rental car, which Justin drove into town, at the airport and have dinner at a nearby restaurant. Later, they spend an hour and a half in the gallery about a block down the road and Justin can’t help critiquing the art, which is even more provincial than Pittsburgh’s usual fare. Brian seems amused by his remarks and smiles at Justin a lot. Justin’s skin is starting to itch.

Babylon is in full swing even this early. It always is on Saturday nights. Justin entertains himself with dancing and talking to a guy who remembers him from long ago when Justin used to come here all the time, while Brian disappears into the office for an hour. When Justin is just about to go and see what Brian’s doing, he re-appears and drags Justin onto the dance floor.

Two hours later, Justin is pleasantly buzzed and not at all opposed to following Brian into the VIP lounge. Brian pushes him towards one of the armchairs and kisses him while taking Justin’s shirt off and pushing his pants down. It’s been a long time since Justin’s been completely naked in public, but the drinks and the drugs that Brian’s fed him go a long way to awaken his dormant exhibitionist streak and he knows that Brian’s still sober, which makes Justin feel safe. Brian always makes him feel safe from other people. It’s feeling safe from Brian that’s the problem.

Brian gives him a little push so that he lands sprawled in the armchair and Brian looks down at him with his tongue wedged into his cheek. Justin feels his love for Brian spike almost painfully.

Then Brian kneels down to help him the rest of the way out of his pants and shoes. Justin leans forward to kiss any part of Brian’s head he can reach, first his hair, and then, when he looks up, his cheeks and mouth, their tongues getting busy with each other for a long time.

“You getting undressed?” Justin asks because he’s starting to get impatient. This is not the place for leisurely exploration, this is the place for hard and fast fucking.

“In a moment,” Brian says with a smile and trails his finger down Justin’s chest before his hand closes around Justin’s cock, just holding it for now.

Justin makes a strangled noise because he’s _so_ ready for this and Brian _still_ has to take his clothes off. He’s not sure if he can wait that long. But then he doesn’t have to because Brian bends down and licks around the tip of his cock. Alarm bells go off in Justin’s head almost despite himself.

“Brian!” he hisses in an urgent whisper.

Brian looks back up at him and grins. “Yes, dear?”

Justin makes an upwards nodding motion towards the rest of the room, where more than one couple have faltered in their activities to watch Brian Kinney on his knees. Justin’s eyes flash warningly, reminding Brian where they are.

Brian gives his cock a little squeeze and raises a questioning eyebrow.

“We are in the VIP lounge,” Justin says pointedly. “At _Babylon_.”

Brian looks around as if he’s only just now becoming aware of his surroundings. Most of the guys watching them look away hastily, only one or two look back at him with an amused smirk. “You don’t like it here?” Brian asks, looking back at Justin. “You wanna do this in the backroom?”

Justin stares at him in surprise and then Brian licks a long, slow trail from the base of Justin’s cock up to the tip and Justin’s eyes close involuntarily.

“You want me to stop?” Brian’s voice floats from somewhere into his dwindling consciousness and Justin forgets why he ever thought he should be objecting to this.

“Don’t you dare,” he mumbles and grabs the sides of the armchair when Brian chuckles and it vibrates around his cock as Brian takes him halfway in.

On the way home, Justin is still dizzy with happiness, not as happy as his seventeen-year-old self would have been if he’d got blown by Brian in public, but happy enough to not think too much about whether this is the right time to start a serious conversation or not. He’s thinking about the loft and how he always loved it there, and how much he hates Britin. Having to drive all the way out here in the middle of the night just reinforces that he doesn’t want to live here. He’s been meaning to talk to Brian about this all day but never seemed to be able to find the right moment or the right mood. Now seems to be as good a time as any.

“I nearly went off the road here on my first day,” he says by way of an introduction, as they're just reaching that sharp corner by the tree.

The ‘vette swerves sharply to the right, thumping wildly over a small patch of grass before veering just as sharply back into the road, slightly too far over into the other lane, until Brian regains control and the car slows down to a standstill. Justin's hanging on to the handle above the door for dear life, his body stretched rigidly as he instinctively tries to brace himself against impact with his feet. A short scream escapes him, more like a shout, and then he stares at Brian.

“What the fuck, Brian!” he shouts, more scared than angry. He’s never before felt frightened when driving with Brian, no matter what level of intoxication Brian had reached and tonight Brian is stone-cold sober for the very reason that he knew they'd be driving out here. Justin can feel his own heart hammering wildly from the adrenalin rush.

“Fuck, Justin,” Brian says, not quite shouting but loud enough. “Did you have to?” He bangs the steering wheel with both hands a couple of times and he’s shaking a little, Justin can just see it in the near darkness. The car’s still idling in the middle of the lane, but there’s no traffic about, so they’re fine for the moment.

“What’d I do?” Justin asks, trying to keep his voice steady. “I was just pointing out that that’s a really dangerous corner.” He takes a deep breath and tries a smile. “Which, I suppose, you’ve just proved.”

Brian huffs out a mirthless laugh, then puts the car back into gear to take them the rest of the way home. “Yeah,” is his only reply.

They stay in the car after Brian parks it in the double garage and he lights a cigarette with still shaking fingers.

Justin watches him smoke, wondering what the hell just happened. His inebriated brain takes a while to get to the bottom of it and asking Brian is out of the question – naturally. Brian’s looking studiously through the windshield at the bare wall of the garage. But Justin gets there in the end.

“I was never in any danger,” he says quietly, putting his hand on Brian’s thigh and getting no reaction. “Please, don’t make this into something it’s not. I’m just saying that it’s a tricky corner and it’s one of the reasons I don’t want to live here. It’s just too far out of town.”

Brian stubs out his cigarette in the ashtray and when he draws back, he takes Justin’s hand and interlaces their fingers in an uncharacteristically possessive gesture. “You don’t have to live here,” is all he says.

In the past, Justin would have taken that for a _you’re free to go, what do I care?_ But not now. Now it’s a concession to abide by Justin’s wishes. “We’ll talk about it later,” Brian says and looks at him for the first time.

“Yeah, later,” Justin agrees.   

 

*

 

On Sunday morning, Brian insists on going to the diner for breakfast. Justin really doesn’t have a good argument against that, other than that it’s a long way to go for mediocre food. But he’s willing to indulge Brian and he can always hope that Debbie won’t be there.

But she is and the knowing look she gives them when they come in tells Justin that Michael's already passed on all the information he gathered the day before. It’s not much, but it’s doubtful anyway whether either Debbie or Michael care much beyond the basic ‘Brian and Justin are back together again’.

Debbie hugs both of them and then stops to sit with them while they’re eating. Justin barely looks at her, hoping against hope that she’ll keep her mouth shut about their little conspiracy and Debbie does, although the smirk she favors Justin with seems like a giant neon sign to him. Maybe he’s just paranoid.

“So when are you off again?” Debbie asks, glaring at one of the customers, who’s loudly wondering what happened to the service in the place.

“Tuesday,” Brian says, stirring his coffee. “We’re off to New York.”

“ _We_? _Are_?” Justin asks. It’s news to him, but not unwelcome. Of course, he’s aware that Brian is New York bound, but they haven’t spoken about it yet and Justin sure as hell didn’t know that _he_ was going along. But he feels strangely compliant at the moment, mainly because Brian’s been in a weird mood since he came to the house on Thursday. Or maybe that’s Brian’s normal mood nowadays and Justin just doesn’t know it.

“I’ll get Cynthia to get you a ticket tomorrow.”

“Uhm, okay.”

Debbie just grins at them, no doubt having fond memories of the past when Brian was always springing surprises on Justin – not all of them pleasant. She has no idea how much Justin hates surprises.

He’s struck by how different Debbie is around Brian, not just different from how she used to be around him but also different from how she talks to Justin. There’s the same gentle tone but also something else – she is… _careful_. There’s no word about her granddaughter or even Melanie, just Michael and Ben and Carl.

Eventually, she gets up and serves a few customers, ruffling Brian’s hair as she walks past him. Brian pulls away and runs his hand through it to put it back the way it was. Smiling, Justin reaches out and puts a few stray strands back into place and Brian just lets him. It seems like a melancholy silence has settled over them and Justin regrets agreeing to come here.

When they’re finished, Brian wedges a large amount of money under his plate, excessive even for him, and Debbie comes over to give both of them a hug again, Brian’s noticeably longer than Justin’s.

“Come to our next dinner,” she says quietly.

“Can’t,” Brian answers. “Take care of yourself, Deb.”

“You too, Honey.”

Coming out into the fresh air seems like more of a relief than it ought to be.

As they walk towards the car, Brian lights a cigarette. “So who else have you roped into your little conspiracy?”

“Huh?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, Justin. I know Debbie and I know you. You two have been scheming. Who else? Cynthia? Ted? Michael?”

“Michael would never do such a thing,” Justin says indignantly.

“But the rest of them?” Brian’s voice is neutral and Justin can’t quite work out if he’s annoyed or amused. He hopes it’s the latter. Surely Brian won’t mind, not now.

“If anybody was scheming, it was _for_ you, not against you, Brian. It’s been three years. Maybe they thought you were ready, or maybe they just want to see you happy. Everybody knows that’s not gonna happen without me.”

Brian stares at him, dumbstruck, and Justin grins impishly. Then Brian barks out a laugh and for the first time, Justin thinks of him as unguarded. “Twat,” Brian says in a fond voice, pulling him close and kissing his temple.

Justin thinks it’s one of the more romantic things Brian’s ever said to him.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Justin is referring to the Kübler-Ross model of the Stages of Grief. It sets out five stages that people go through to cope with catastrophic loss or terminal illness. They are: denial (“This can’t be happening to me.”), anger (“Why me? Who’s to blame?”), bargaining (“I give anything if...”), depression (”What’s the point?”) and acceptance (“It’s going to be all right.”)


	8. Chapter 8

 

**PART  EIGHT**

Ted has seen Brian in a variety of states – from being off his head on drugs and booze to such a degree that he really doesn’t care what he does or says to being professionally charming enough to divest clients of all their money almost against their will – but he doesn’t think that he’s seen him like this before.

Brian calls him into his office just after lunch on Monday and goes through the books with him. It’s not such a rare occurrence after a long absence, but Brian’s never before wanted so much detail. Ted doesn’t mind. He likes showing off how well he has everything under control. Accountancy is the only area in his life where he has a chance to impress his boss. 

He _likes_ to impress Brian and often marvels how his profession, which came under so much ridicule from Brian when they were just semi-friends, has now become their common ground, where they're equals and respect each other. And in the long run, everyone wants to earn Brian’s respect, whether it’s professionally or privately. There’s just something about him that makes you crave his approval.

But there’s something different about Brian today. Normally, he just looks for ballpoint figures and asks for projections – which he then largely ignores. Maybe he doesn’t trust Ted quite that far or maybe he doesn’t care about what future Ted predicts because Brian knows he can always do better. And he usually does, too. But today he wants to know everything, every last cent catches his interest, every contract, every projection and every deadline.

To Ted it feels a bit like being back at college – and during exam time, no less. For a while he wonders if he’s lost Brian’s trust altogether and whether Brian’s trying to catch him fiddling the books. But Ted knows that if that were the case, there would be a professional audit and he'd be sitting outside waiting for the verdict, possibly with a security guard by his side. And he’s really not that insecure anymore. So, after a few minutes, he starts to enjoy himself. It’s not very often that someone takes more than a passing interest in what he actually does instead of just wanting to know how much money he can make them.

Today, Brian is what Ted would call jovial and that’s certainly new. Ted knows that he’s the only one out of the old gang who sees Brian on a regular basis and even that’s only because he works for him. But they’ve also become friends of sorts and there are times when Brian actually listens to Ted. However, that doesn’t mean what the gang thinks it means. Ted isn’t hanging out with Brian outside work and has no more clue about what Brian does than any of them.

Ted has new friends now. There’s Tyler, who works for Cynthia in Admin, and there are some people that Blake introduced him to, who’ve become good friends to both of them. Ted had to withdraw from what he considers his family when Brian withdrew from them. In the end, he couldn’t stand the constant barrage of questions every time he saw any member of the gang. He didn’t know anything and even if he had, he wouldn’t have been able to tell anyone without losing his job. But that’s not how the others saw it. It ended with so much resentment on both sides that he simply stopped going to Deb’s and the diner and Michael's and he now only sees Emmett once in a blue moon.

For a while, Ted was angry with Brian for being the cause of his alienation, but he’s long since resigned himself to the fact that Brian’s behavior may have been at the heart of it, but Ted would also have expected more consideration for his own position from his other friends. Things are what they are. It’s no one’s fault. 

Ted likes that Brian is intensely interested in what he has to say and after a while he realizes what it is that’s different today. There’s no hint of mockery in Brian’s voice.

Finally, Brian looks at him. “It’s looking good, Theodore.”

“Yes, I think we can safely say that Kinnetik’s in excellent shape.”

Brian tilts his head to one side and gives him a smile that’s almost seductive – because Brian doesn’t know how not to be seductive. “I meant you’re doing a great job.”

Ted stops gathering his papers together and looks at him, somewhat confused. It’s not as if Brian’s never praised him before, it’s just that he’s never done it in such a straight forward manner or with so little reason. Nothing out of the ordinary has occurred and Ted hasn’t done anything that he doesn’t do every single day of the week. “Thank you, Bri,” he says after clearing his throat.

Brian just nods and turns to his laptop. “You should go home, Theodore. Take the rest of the afternoon off. I’m sure your hubby would appreciate it.”

Ted ignores the implied slight on his rather normative domestic situation and almost says something along the lines of ‘I’m sure yours would, too’, but that would give Cynthia away and quite possibly fuck things up for Justin as well. The last thing Ted wants is setting Brian off on one of his ‘I need to prove something’ trips to Babylon and the baths when it looks like there’s finally a glimmer of hope on the horizon for him. So he just nods and makes his way to the door, his mind already on the evening ahead. He hopes Blake will be home at a decent time, so they can enjoy it together.

“By the way, Theodore, I trust that my personal papers are in order?” he hears Brian say and when he stops in his tracks and turns to look at him, Brian hasn’t even looked up from the screen.

“They’re the same as they were three years ago. Are you planning on making any changes?”

“No.” There’s a pause and Brian taps a few keys. “Just making sure that everything’s up to date.”

“Everything’s up to date,” Ted confirms and looks at Brian a bit longer, waiting for… something. But he already knows that this is the end of the conversation. Brian doesn’t need to explain himself. He never did and never will.

“Goodbye, Theodore.”

“Bye, Brian.”

Ted dismisses the feeling that something's off – just ever so slightly out of alignment – with a shrug. Brian hasn’t been right for a long time and Ted won’t be the one to fix it. He does what he can and leaves the rest to those who have a chance to succeed, namely Justin. And he has a free afternoon. It’s a rare enough occurrence for him to be happy about that, especially coming hot on the heels of some unexpected praise from Brian. Yes, he will really enjoy the rest of the day.

 

*

 

Justin is in his studio all afternoon, painting without much inspiration or enthusiasm. He feels sluggish after a long lie-in. Brian’s insomnia is taking its toll on Justin. Not only does Brian not sleep more than three or four hours a night, he’s also rather restless as soon as he’s awake. Justin’s ass can give testament to _how_ restless. He feels as sleep-deprived as if he was the one with insomnia and going back to bed after breakfast has only made matters worse.

Justin cakes some colors onto the canvas, being faintly aware that he’s working so slowly that the paints are starting to dry up on the palette. He squeezes some more out of the tube but then realizes that he accidentally squirted a dab of ocher onto his teal. He should just give up, but he’s not here to paint anyway, he’s here because it helps him think.

He absentmindedly mixes the ocher and the teal together, producing something that looks vaguely sickening. He should stop this pointless exercise. He should eat something. He should shower. He should be happy.

Where the fuck did that come from?

Four weeks ago he awoke in a hospital in New York to see Brian sitting by his bed. Today he and Brian are back together after three endlessly long years and Justin should be ecstatic. He has dreamed about this for so long, and yet… Maybe he really is never content with what he’s got.

But he doesn’t think that’s the problem. The problem is Brian – how could it be otherwise? There’s something about him that freaks Justin out. Brian is so weirdly… what? Serene. Calm and serene. That’s what. And that’s not really Brian.

Okay, so Brian is still struggling with his grief. And, really, is it any wonder the way everybody tiptoes around him? Justin knows that Debbie and Michael mean well and are trying their hardest not to upset Brian, but all they managed to do in three years is letting Brian stay stuck in the process. It took Justin a long time to get over Lindsay and Gus, not least because he also had to cope with losing Brian at the same time. So Justin read a lot of literature and he knows all about the stages of grief. He worked through his feelings of loss meticulously, both over Lindsay and Gus and over Brian.

Brian, after choosing in true Kinney fashion to do this alone, somehow never got past the first couple of stages and no surprise there when no one expected him to. Brian's never been very good at coping with emotions, positive or negative. He’s afraid of them and does his hardest to ignore them. The tragedy knocked everyone in the family off their feet, but Brian was the only one who didn’t have anyone to help him back up. The fact that he contrived to make it so doesn’t alter the fact that they all failed him.

Justin thinks back over every word Brian has uttered since he walked into the house on Thursday. So Brian somehow got it into his head that he’s being punished, and damn his mother and the religious claptrap she inflicted on him during his childhood! Justin went to church a few times when he was a child, usually on high holidays, but it didn’t mean much to him or even his parents and when he realized he was gay, the idea that it might be a sin honestly never even came into it.

But he would bet that Brian really struggled with that. Add to that the constant disapproval from his parents and it wasn’t such a stretch that Brian would think that he was being punished. So what he’s been doing for the last three years, withdrawing from everyone he loves, was just punishment for himself. Because Brian would much rather suffer himself than see other people in pain.

Brian can’t quite deny what happened, but he can’t just accept it either. He let out his anger and frustration for two months – and Justin really doesn’t want to know any longer what exactly he did in that time – and then he started bargaining. There was nothing he could do for Gus and Lindsay, but somehow Brian thinks that he can keep everyone safe if stays away from them, if he gives up his own happiness for theirs.

So far, it all makes sense to Justin – sort of, because, really, how damaged and, yes, self-absorbed do you have to be to believe that everything that happens in life is because of you? But he’s used to that with Brian, who still believes that Justin got bashed in the head because _he_ came to his prom or that Justin nearly got blown up because he was at _his_ club.

But be that as it may, the real question is what happened to make Brian change his mind? Why did he suddenly turn up? Justin can’t quite believe that it was remorse over what happened with Owen. Brian has never given much weight to a fuck. Even if he felt momentarily bad about hurting Justin, it wouldn't be sufficient to suddenly turn around and forget all about the last three years.

And it’s not just that. It’s that Brian is decidedly weird at the moment, soft and gentle and attentive. Even at his worst pod person phase after the proposal he was never like this. Brian cooked him breakfast on Saturday – which Justin then didn’t eat and he feels bad about that now – and he told Justin that he loves him without any prompting. He never even looked at other guys at Babylon and he blew Justin in the VIP lounge. On his knees! And didn’t care. Whatever Justin said to him over the weekend, there was not a single sarcastic deflection from Brian.

Everything is wonderful.

He should be happy.

Fuck!

Justin cleans his brushes when the afternoon turns into evening. He takes a long shower and packs his bag because tomorrow they’ll be going to New York. There wasn’t even a discussion about that. Just like there wasn’t a discussion about not living at Britin. Brian has mentioned that the contract he signed last week would be not just sufficient but demanding that Kinnetik expands and that he would do this in New York if Justin wanted it.

Justin should be more than happy, but something isn’t right. He can feel it in his bones or in his gut or somewhere. Something doesn’t add up. And that feeling that his skin itches hasn’t really left him. Brian is up to something. He’s going to disappear again, Justin knows it. Maybe even more thoroughly than he did before.

He’s lying on the couch in the living room and stares at the ceiling. Brian's promised him that he'll always speak to him from now on and that they’ll always see each other if they're in the same city. Well, he said ‘place’, which is a strange way of putting it, but still, Brian doesn’t break his promises. So why is Justin so uneasy?

After a while, he goes to stick a pizza in the oven and the smell emanating from the kitchen twenty minutes later makes his empty stomach growl. But when the food is done, he can only down one slice. His restlessness drives him to the front window in the living room. He doesn’t expect Brian to be home before late because Brian will spend a week or two in New York and he’ll want to have everything in order by the time he leaves Kinnetik tonight. He said as much this morning.

It’s around nine o’clock when Justin’s cellphone rings. He walks over to pick it up from the coffee table and glances at the caller display, which doesn’t help him much since he doesn’t recognize the number.

“Hello?”

“ _Hey, Justin. It’s Ted. Is Brian home yet?”_

“No, I thought he was still at work.”

_“He probably is. Uhm… I wanted to talk to you actually.”_

Behind Brian’s back, obviously. Justin can’t quite decide whether he finds it amusing or annoying that now, when he doesn’t need it any longer, everybody seems to be willing to discuss Brian with him. For three years they’ve blocked all his attempts to even talk about Brian, never mind keeping his phone number a closely guarded secret. Then, even one person willing to share would have given Justin a glimmer of hope, now it feels like adding insult to injury. Surely there must be some irony in there.

 “What’s up?” he asks, as friendly as he can make it in this weird mood that he’s in.

_“I don’t really now. I mean, I don’t know if it’s anything at all. Or if I’m just seeing problems where there aren’t any. Or if I’m overreacting. But Blake always tells me to say it out loud to see how stupid it sounds when I do. So this is me, saying it out loud, so that I can get some sleep later, instead of worrying about it all night.”_

There‘s a pause, in which Ted clears his throat but doesn’t say anything afterwards.

“Ted, to say it out loud, you would actually have to, you know, _say_ it. What the fuck’s this about?”

_“What? Oh, yes, of course. So, I was in a meeting with Brian earlier. And he was a little weird. I don’t know how to describe it. He didn’t make fun of me at all and he said I was doing a good job and then he told me to take the rest of the afternoon off. He’s never done that before. Not once.”_

“Uhm… you’re upset because Brian _didn’t_ make fun of you and gave you the afternoon off? Are you sure I’m the right person to call?”

Ted sighs. _“Yeah, you’re right. I’m probably seeing things. But, it’s just… I have this_ feeling _… and I can’t shake it.”_

“You and me both,” Justin mutters, mostly to himself, but Ted hears it and sighs again, this time in relief.

_“You, too, eh? Well, do you know what’s going on?”_

“Haven’t worked it out yet.”

“ _Oh.”_ There’s a pause in which Ted's probably trying to work out if Justin really doesn’t know or if he’s just not saying. Justin thinks that it would serve everybody right if they were the ones left in the dark for a change. He has to admit though, that he always understood Ted’s reasons better than anybody else’s. The poor guy was really stuck between a rock and a hard place.

_“Well, I won’t bother you any longer. I just wanted to put my mind at rest. Pass the buck so to speak. There was one other thing though… before I left his office, he asked me if all his personal papers were in order.”_

“What personal papers?”

_“Well, we usually refer to his will and his in absentia instructions, that sort of thing, for Kinnetik as his personal papers. That was probably what set me off. Although it’s always prudent to revise those routinely every now and then.”_

“What do they say?”

_“Uhm… Justin… you know, I don’t think I should talk about that. That’s something you should ask Brian.”_

Yeah, Justin didn’t think it would be that easy and it was just idle curiosity anyway. But it has the effect that Ted ends the conversation in a hurry. He’s got very good at that over the years.

Justin feels even worse after he puts the phone down. So he’s not the only one who senses that there’s something going on. He presses the speed dial button to call Brian. It would make him feel better to speak to him and he can find out when he’s coming home at the same time.

It goes straight to voicemail. Not a single ring. Brian must have his cell phone switched off. Justin stands in the middle of the living room, tapping the side of his phone against his chin thoughtfully. He thinks of the weekend and of how soft Brian has been. Of Brian agreeing to any and all of Justin’s suggestions. Of Brian’s visits to Michael and the diner. Of Brian blowing him in front of everyone at Babylon. Of personal papers and of Brian saying ‘I didn’t want you to think of me like that’.

And suddenly it all makes sense. Of course, Brian was amenable to Justin’s wishes – because he knew he wouldn’t have to make good on any of it. And blowing Justin in public no longer matters because his reputation at Babylon is no longer of any importance to Brian.

Justin tries the cell again as he’s already rushing into the hall and slipping into his trainers.

_“Kinney. Leave a message.”_

“Damn it, Brian! Don’t do this to me. If you do this… if you… don’t do this to me! _Please_ … Answer the fucking phone, damn it!”

He snaps his phone shut and runs out to his rental car. They’re planning to travel to the airport in it tomorrow morning and leaving the ‘vette in the garage at Britin. He throws his cell on the passenger seat and starts the car. The headlights throw a ghostly beam over the already darkening driveway and bounce up and down a little as Justin races the car down it.

 

*

 

Cynthia’s steps fade away along the corridor as she makes her way out of the building. She’s the last one to leave and for a moment Brian marvels at how lucky he was that the first person the typing pool sent him when he became a senior account manager at Ryder’s turned out to be the best PA he could have wished for. He leans back in his chair and stares at the ceiling. He loves this office. He’s always loved this office. But Cynthia has informed him that it’s now after eight o’clock and he knows he can no longer linger. He tidies his desk with precision. Everything in its place and every pen and pencil neatly aligned. He likes order. It gives him a sense of being in control that he’s long since learned to recognize as an illusion.

He rearranges the fruit display on the conference table and then switches the lights off. He does the same in the outer office. Passing the Art Department, he sticks his head in for a moment. One of the boards catches his eye and he walks over there. Marker pen already in hand he hesitates. He wants to leave Trevor a note that the green needs to be a shade darker, but then thinks better of it and shrugs. He’ll just have to trust that Trevor will work it out for himself.

Brian makes his way to the front door, throwing his empire into darkness as he goes along. The security guard must be on his break because he’s nowhere to be seen, so Brian lets himself out and locks the door. He gives one last look up at the building, remembering when this was an actual bathhouse, a long, long time ago – in another life, well, someone else’s life almost.

In the car he switches his cellphone off and pauses again. The urge to call Justin is strong, but he knows that he can’t. Justin can never even suspect the truth. It’s better this way – he told Justin that before. Of course, Justin never listens and even when he does, he argues endlessly.

Against his normal habit, Brian sticks rigidly to the speed limit and doesn’t even get impatient when there’s a short delay because of some construction on one of the main roads. Then he’s out in the countryside and the roads are less busy before becoming practically deserted.

He stops the car in the same spot where he stopped on Friday, looking at the tree that’s just far enough away to gather enough speed. When he retrieves his cigarettes from his pocket, there are four left in the pack. Okay, four cigarettes it is.

The light’s just starting to fade now, giving the countryside an eerie pale pink glow. It’s rather soothing. He lights the first one.

Brian’s been planning this for a long time. Granted, setting his fortieth birthday as a deadline was arbitrary, but it made a kind of poetic sense to him. If Mikey hadn’t turned up on the night before his thirtieth birthday, there’s a good chance Brian wouldn’t be sitting here, wishing that his life had been that easy. At the time, he thought it was about sexual gratification more than the risk of dying, but it wouldn’t have bothered him if he had. Well, of course, it wouldn’t have bothered him, he would have been dead. And would have left a beautiful corpse.

There are a lot of experiences he’d never have had if he’d died that night. Some still make him marvel that it really happened to him, like those nine months after Justin went to New York. He remembers traveling there every weekend that Justin couldn’t make it home, knowing that he was moving towards that point in his life where everything would fall into place. And Justin doing the same and being ten times more beautiful, inside and out, for being happy.

Some things in his life really worked out great. Kinnetik for example, which is more successful than he’d ever hoped when he started out. In the beginning, it was just a means to earn some money after getting fired from Vangard, but it soon became so much more. It was one-upmanship on his part, showing the world that it couldn’t keep Brian Kinney down. Not for long anyway. How arrogant he was then!

But still, Kinnetik is his proudest achievement. They’re at a point now where he can do what he always dreamed of, go to New York. Where he always wanted to be. Now, he could show the people out there how it’s done. After bagging the Barron Industries account, Kinnetik is practically guaranteed success there. Only, it doesn’t mean anything anymore, just hard work.

When he saw Mitch Barron sign the contract last week and didn’t feel anything akin to elation, Brian knew that Kinnetik was no longer a good enough excuse to linger. He achieved what he wanted. Now that he knows that he made his dream come true, he doesn’t need to actually live it. And Kinnetik will be his legacy, a way to live on for a little while after he’s gone. It’s not as if he has any other legacies left.

Of course, he fully expects to be talked about on Liberty Avenue for some time to come. Even nearing forty, he can still have whomever he wants. It’s his personal playground, especially at Babylon. But it’s never been the same after the bombing. It’s as if there’s a lingering aura of morbidity in the air, although he seems to be the only one feeling it. Fags are fickle. They soon forgot the dead and the injured and they’ll forget him even quicker. So maybe he’ll be lucky to be talked about for a couple of weeks.

Being the stud of gay Pittsburgh doesn’t mean anything to him anymore. It wouldn’t last forever anyway and he doesn’t want to become the aging club boy that Michael accused him of being once. He’s slowed down already, maybe not by other people’s standards, but by his own. The problem is that pulling guys does nothing for him any longer other than physical release and mild distraction. The chase doesn’t excite him as it once did and the actual fucking is on par with a good workout in the gym.

Unless it’s Justin, of course. That’s what Justin didn’t understand about Brian after the proposal. Not only did the other guys not mean anything in terms of personal attachment, but he also no longer needed them for his ego. But Justin got it eventually, after Brian’s umpteenth visit to New York.

Even with Justin in a different city, Brian was… happy. Committed in his own way. Hopeful. He knew it was only a matter of time until everything in his life would come together. He and Justin were already closer than they’d ever been when they were living together. It truly was only time. And Justin understood that after a while.

And then, just as Brian was on the verge of getting everything he never coveted and now wanted with a wild fierceness, Fate came along and pulled the rug from under his feet. Laughing at him for his hubris. And Brian didn’t just stumble, he crumbled. He bowed down and submitted to a higher power. Because some fights you cannot win.

Brian lights another cigarette and winds down the window a little to let the smoke out. It’s still warm out, despite being nearly dark now. It’s so quiet out here, he can imagine himself alone in the world. Like he has been over the last three years. Because he made it that way.

It was hard at times, staying away, being solitary. But the longer it went on, the easier it got. All his relationships changed and he can’t tell any longer if it’s because he sees them so rarely now or because of the accident. Nowadays, Brian feels a strange loneliness even when he’s with Michael. It’s the complete opposite of how Michael made him feel when they were younger and it’s another reason that Brian has avoided seeing him. The same goes for Debbie. He hasn’t forgotten that Debbie is more of a mother to him than Joanie ever was and that Michael will always be his friend. Even Ted and Emmett he'll always consider his friends because they never stopped treating him as such.

But it’s just so damn hard because he’s so fucking tired all the time. Everything’s a struggle. He has lapses in concentration that he never used to have before. There are periods where he just drifts off, not asleep – how he wishes he was! – but not quite awake either. And once or twice he even had blackouts. He’s tired of being tired. It makes him short-tempered and impairs his judgment. He’s started reviewing all his work first thing after he gets up because those two or three hours are the only time of the day when he can think clearly. His doctor warned him about that and about delusions and paranoia. Luckily there are no signs of any of those yet.

He lights a new cigarette on the old one before stubbing it out. 

He had a plan. For three years Brian had a plan and he stuck to it religiously. With hard work and determination he has turned Kinnetik into something to be proud of. And what’s more, it will give Justin the means to achieve whatever he wants in his life. At the same time, Brian's managed to keep everyone safe by keeping away from them and in the process got them all so used to not seeing him, that they’ll hardly notice that he’s gone.

But now all bets are off – again. And it’s because of Justin – again. Justin always manages to get under his skin, he always did and always will. For the last three years nothing‘s been as hard as staying away from Justin. The only thing that kept Brian going was his conviction that he was keeping Justin safe and knowing that he wouldn’t have to do this forever.

And then he gets one measly phone call and all his plans and all his struggles are shot to hell. Brian knows that it was a sign. There’s a reason it happened just at the point where he has to make a decision about expanding Kinnetik. It must mean that he’s done all that he should and it’s time to go. Why wait for his fortieth birthday?

But once Brian made that decision, he couldn’t leave things with Justin as they were. He didn’t want Justin’s last memory of him be seeing him come out of Owen’s bedroom. And Justin deserved some answers, too. That’s the reason Brian came here for the weekend. He somehow had to convey to Justin that he did it all to protect him, to remove Brian’s toxic influence from his life, not because Brian didn’t love him anymore.

Only, he doesn’t know how successful he was in doing that. He tried to be the perfect partner over the weekend, to leave Justin with the best memory of him that he could possibly have. But he can’t tell if he’s done enough.

What he does know is that, in the process, he’s found something that he didn’t expect. He’s been happy for the last few days. Justin managed to warm him in places that he didn’t know were cold. And what is more, Brian didn’t think he would ever be warm again. Not on the inside.

After only four and a half days, two of which he spent almost entirely at work, Brian feels a lot less numb and everything suddenly looks a little different. Like what he’s doing right now. He’s had this tree picked out for a long time. His doctor will be able to testify to his insomnia and it’ll seem natural that he fell asleep at the wheel, especially on these quiet roads out here. He always knew that there must never be any doubt that it was an accident. It would be too cruel to put Justin through that.

But now that he’s here, he’s suddenly aware that he’d much rather go home. Whenever he thought about this before, it's always afforded him a vague sense of comfort. So he expected to feel relief, but all he can think of is Justin. It seems unfair to him that he has to end it at this point when all he has to do is reach out and take what’s been missing from his life for so long. If he were to go home now and leave it for another day, would there really be any harm in that? After the three years he’s just been through, he deserves a little happiness, right?

He stubs out his cigarette and takes the last one out the pack, crumbling the cardboard box and throwing it behind the seat. Last one. It’s nearly time. In the distance he sees the moving headlights of another car and is vaguely annoyed that it’s disturbing his solitude.

But he doesn’t light up yet because he’s not ready. How can he not be ready? He’s been planning this for so long. Why is it only now that he has doubts for the first time?

There’s always the possibility that he _wants_ to have doubts now, because he would much rather be with Justin. There was never any question that he wanted to be with Justin all this time, but now he wonders if it’s possible. Maybe the answer isn’t to stay away but to stay close to keep an eye on him, like Justin said. Also, this weekend was the first time Brian’s ever told anyone about the reason for his behavior over the last three years. And, predictably, Justin scoffed at his ideas.

What if Justin is right? What if life is just random events? Brian has always believed that people make their own luck and their own pain. He has lived by that credo all his life. It helped him leave behind his parents, become a big fucking success and find the happiness he’d mistrusted all his life. He never credited God or Fate with any of that. That was all determination and hard work and a bit of sheer damn luck.

Of course, there’s an element of chance in everything. All the good things in his life – Justin, Debbie, Michael, success – are to some extent accidental. Being born the way he was, gifted with good looks, intelligence and talent was the luck of the draw. Getting paired with Michael for a chemistry project on his first day at school was just happenstance. And how much more random can you get than meeting someone under a streetlight? He never considered any of that fate, just fortuity, if he ever thought about it in those terms at all.

And yet he considers all the terrible things in his life a well-deserved punishment. Why is that? He knows it has a lot to do with his upbringing, with going to church every week and hearing how God punishes the sinners. But he doesn’t believe in God anymore, hasn’t for a long time. And if he rejected one higher power, why would he believe in another, in Fate?

And if none of it is Fate, then what he’s doing is pointless. He suddenly realizes that he’s no longer convinced that it'll achieve anything. All this time he never doubted that this is the way, that this would save Justin and everybody else he loves. What if he was only convinced of it because it was easier this way? It meant that he didn’t have to endure the pain he was feeling forever. And it helped him cope with this terrible fear that he can’t master, the fear of losing Justin.

So that makes him a coward really. He never looked at it that way. Brian knows that he’s just looking for arguments not to do this, because he no longer _wants_ to do this, because after only a few days with Justin, he knows that being with him is all he wants now. He really doesn’t know any longer what to think, but he knows how he feels. And if there’s the slightest chance that he was wrong all this time, that being with Justin won’t cause Justin any harm, then he'll take that chance and make the most of it. And if he was right all this time, then maybe the three years of purgatory he’s put himself through will be enough. Either way, he won’t do this as long as he has doubts. And a life with Justin to look forward to.

Brian breathes deeply to quell the fear that assails him with full force as soon as his decision is made. He knows it’s stupid to think that Justin is in any more danger now that Brian decided to be with him, than he was this morning or this afternoon, but it’s hard to stop thinking like that after all this time. He’ll need practice.

He’s ready to smoke that last cigarette now and go home. The other car has made its way along the winding roads and is approaching now, seemingly going very fast. Brian’s momentarily blinded by its headlights and then it’s past in a flash. He fumbles around for his lighter in his pockets, idly watching the taillights of the other car double in size in the wing mirror. Brake lights. A moment later, the white reverse lights come on and the other car moves closer, backing into the lay-by at breakneck speed and coming to a stop behind his own car. Then everything is in darkness again and Brian watches the driver approach, open the door to the ‘vette and slip into the passenger seat.

He doesn’t look at Justin, just sticks the last cigarette between his lips and lights it. They both look out front silently and Brian winds the window all the way down, so that Justin doesn’t have to breathe his smoke.

Justin's gulping in shuddering breaths as if he’s been running instead of driving. “Nice view,” he says finally, staring at the tree, which is silhouetted against the darkening sky, its branches all blackness and shadows now.

“Yeah, in a rustic, accident black spot kind of way.”

He can hear Justin swallow hard. “So I was right?”

Brian shrugs. “Would you believe me if I said no?”

“You have any idea how fucking angry I’m with you right now? I would hit you if I wasn’t so fucking relieved that I’m not too late.”

“You wouldn’t have been too late anyway.” Brian blows the smoke out of the window.

Justin looks at him for the first time. “I wouldn’t have?”

“Nah, I’m just enjoying the view.” Brian isn’t going to tell him that he changed his mind less than two minutes ago. Justin knows and Brian’s okay with that, but he won’t discuss it. It also means that Justin wouldn’t have been fooled anyway and Brian’s glad that he didn’t put him through that after all.

“The rustic, accident black spot kind of view?” Justin gives him a little smile, Brian can just see out of the corner of his eye.

“Yeah. It’s very underrated.”

There’s another long pause while Brian is smoking, looking straight ahead, and Justin is watching him.

“What’s gonna happen now?” Justin asks quietly.

“Now we’re going back to the house that you hate. And tomorrow we’re going to New York and we’ll find an apartment and some premises for Kinnetik NY and you’ll finish your degree and paint murals in people’s houses until you become famous and richer than fuck.”

“It can’t be that simple.”

“Probably not. Nothing worth having ever is. Who knows that better than you and I?” He stubs out his half-smoked cigarette and takes Justin’s hand, linking their fingers together and looking at him for the first time. “We’ll make it.”

“Yeah,” Justin says, lifting their hands and kissing Brian’s knuckles.

Brian leans over and waits patiently for Justin to do the same so he can kiss him. The slightly wet noises they’re making sound loud in the enclosure of the car and Justin’s arms come round him like a vise. When they stop, they put their foreheads together in that intimate way they’ve always had, almost from the very beginning.

“Promise me that you'll never do this to me. I need you to promise me. Just this one thing.” Justin’s voice is a little shaky.

“I promise.”

Justin sighs but doesn’t let go. Brian doesn’t mind, despite being hunched a little uncomfortably over the gear stick.

Then Justin chuckles quietly. “You do remember that you blew me in the VIP lounge, right?”

Brian huffs out a laugh. “Yeah, there _is_ that.”

He thinks that maybe he’ll be able to sleep tonight.

 

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

 

**EPILOGUE**

Brian stretches out his hand to knock on the door and hesitates. He hasn’t knocked on Debbie’s door since he was fifteen, but somehow it feels inappropriate to just walk in. On the other hand, it might set the wrong tone for what’s already promising to be a trying afternoon.

Justin ducks under Brian’s outstretched arm, puts his back against the door and leans up to kiss him. Brian kisses him back, glad for the slight delay, and sees him push the door handle to let the door swing open without stopping the kiss.

“Sunshine! Brian!” Debbie’s voice rings out and causes every conversation in the house to cease.

“I think we’ve been spotted,” Justin smirks at Brian.

Brian huffs. “Gee, I wonder how _that_ happened.”

Debbie’s come to the door, pulls Justin away from Brian to give him a hug and then does the same to Brian. “Come in,” she says as if they’re not already past the doorstep. Brian nods and turns to shut the door behind him, taking the opportunity to set his feature to an inscrutable mask.

Justin has already made his way further into the house. Brian likes that about him, that he never treats Brian like he needs looking after. In the eleven months that they’ve been living together in New York, Justin has not once behaved as if he thinks Brian’s fragile somehow. The only thing he does nowadays is account for his whereabouts in a very meticulous fashion. Brian always knows where he is at any given time and Justin calls if he’s even ten minutes late. It goes a long way to alleviate Brian’s fear for him, which he cannot quite conquer, no matter how hard he tries.

Michael’s made his way over and Brian hugs him without a word. “I didn’t think you were coming,”  Michael says in a relieved voice.

“Now, now, Mikey, you should know that I always come when I say I will.”

“I’m sure,” Michael smirks. “How’s New York?”

“Same as it always was, only now there’re two fabulous fags more.”

Conversation has picked up again all around them. Emmett is very vocal in his greeting but won’t let go of his boyfriend’s hand even for a moment. Brian casts about for a name and comes up with _Sebastian_? The guy’s a good four inches shorter than Emmett and Brian can’t help wondering how that doesn’t become awkward at times, given that Emmett is such a bottom.

Ted just raises his water bottle in salutation and carries on talking to Ben and Blake, who give a little wave by way of a greeting. Brian wouldn’t mind spending a couple of hours cloistered away with Ted, talking about work. He really should come to Pittsburgh more often, but he’s just so insanely busy with Kinnetik NY.

As he moves into the kitchen to get himself a beer, he runs into Carl, who’s just coming in from the backyard. “Hey, Brian,” he smiles, opening the fridge and removing a plate of marinated meat with a plastic wrap over it. “Wanna help me with the barbecue?”

Brian snorts. “I know as much about barbecues as I know about football and jet engines.” But he appreciates the sentiment. Carl has a knack for making people feel at ease.

“Grandpa, there’s a fire in the garden,” says the small girl, who’s followed Carl in from the back, pulling on his leg and eyeing Brian with suspicion. Brian looks down at JR, who’s now about five, takes a long drink from his bottle and pretends that not everyone in the room is watching him.

Carl is already on his way back outside, having his free hand pulled by a very determined JR and they both squeeze past Melanie as she’s coming in. She stops for a moment when she sees Brian, who notices that she looks much older than her forty years. Then she makes her way to the sink to wash her hands. “Got one of those for me?” she asks without looking up.

Brian opens the fridge, gets another bottle of beer and opens it for her before passing it. Melanie takes it and drinks some before she says, “Long time no see.”

“Not long enough,” Brian replies, producing something approximating a grin.

“No, never long enough,” she agrees affably and raises her bottle in mock salute.

On the other side of the room, the murmured conversations continue and Justin makes his way over to greet Melanie with a hug.

“Will you come over while you’re here?” Melanie asks.

“Sure. I’m seeing my mother tomorrow. But I could come the day after. We have to go back on Tuesday.”

“Monday’s fine. About three-ish?”

“Sure.”

Brian catches Justin’s eye and raises a questioning eyebrow.

“I always go over to teach JR drawing and painting. I think Lindsay would’ve liked that.”

There’s a minute stutter in the noise level, while Melanie nods in agreement with a wan smile and no one except Justin is looking at Brian. God, Brian hates how they all tiptoe around him. Justin always talks about Lindsay and Gus like he does about anybody else, not a hint of caution or pity in his voice.

“Yeah,” Brian says. “I reckon she would have.”

“Why don’t you come with?” Justin says.

Brian laughs heartily. “You want me to go to Melanie’s house with you? What’s your weapon of choice, Mel?”

She grins. “Sarcasm, usually, but I also make a mean tea.”

Brian shudders. “Tea. How very lesbian of you.”

“ _I_ like tea,” Justin says with a pretend pout.

“I rest my case.”

That earns Brian a short bout of tickling that ends with him wrapping his arms tightly around Justin, for the sole purpose of self-preservation. Both of them know that Brian will never go to Melanie’s place for the simple reason that she still lives in the old house she used to share with Lindsay and Gus. It’s a line that Brian will not cross and Justin doesn’t expect him to.

Over Justin’s head, Brian sees JR bursting back into the kitchen from the backyard, stopping for a moment and then running to wrap her arms around Justin’s legs from behind, saying, “Justin!” happily. “Mama, look, Justin’s here.”

“I can see that.”

Justin laughingly removes himself from Brian’s arms and bends to pick the girl up, settling her comfortably on his hip. “JR. I haven’t seen you in ages. Where have you been?”

“I was here. _You_ always go away.”

“That I do. I live in New York now.”

JR nods like she already knew that. Which she probably did. Justin has always kept in touch with the family and has been a part of JR’s life ever since she was born.

“Who are you?” she asks Brian, eyeing him suspiciously from the safety of Justin’s arm. Brian can feel his stomach hollow at the sight.

“This is Brian,” Justin says. “Remember when you asked me if I have a 'Ben' and I told you all about Brian?”

Brian wonders when that particular conversation took place – before or after they got back together – and what Justin said exactly. He doesn’t have to wonder for long.

“You’re Gus’s daddy,” she says with some wonderment.

Brian nods. What else can he do, other than wish that this day was over already?

“Gus is not here anymore,” JR informs him. Maybe her childish logic can’t conceive any other reason for Brian to be here. “He went with mommy to live with the angels.”

In the sudden pronounced silence, Brian tries hard to keep his eyes on the girl because he really doesn’t want to see the looks on the adults’ faces. Behind Justin, he can see Melanie close her eyes and press her lips together, but it’s for herself, not him.

“If you want, we can draw before we eat,” Justin says quietly. “We can ask your grandma for some paper and pencils.”

“I brought my stuff,” JR squeals excitedly and wiggles until Justin sets her down.

For a few moments there’s complete silence, while the sound of her footsteps fades upstairs. Brian hopes that Justin won’t try and hug him because he couldn’t bear that right now, not in front of everyone. He has learned to talk about Gus and Lindsay a little but never with anyone but Justin. He’s not ready to talk about them here. Nor is he willing to be treated like a fragile flower any longer.

“Never gets any fucking easier,” Melanie mutters to herself and adds a heartfelt, “Fuck!” before she picks up her bottle from the counter and goes back out into the garden.

JR is already stomping back down the stairs and Brian can see Debbie gearing up to say something, when Ted pipes up from the other side of the room. “So, Boss, do you wanna go through some work stuff before we eat, so I can have my dinner in peace later?”

“Sure,” Brian says and makes his way over to the couch to have an impromptu conference. Without papers or a laptop, Ted’s account will be mostly anecdotal, but it will save some time on Monday nonetheless. In the other corners of the room, everybody else starts talking again. Debbie wisely decides that Melanie needs her pep talk more than Brian does and follows her outside. JR is spreading paper and pencils on the kitchen table. And the moment is over.

Later they all sit in the garden, talking loudly and lobbing gently mocking remarks at each other, toned down a little for the sake of the child present. Said child can’t seem to sit still and at times appears to have the ambition to out-shout everyone. Still, it’s almost like it used to be – and nothing like it at the same time. It’s as good as it will ever get.

Carl’s barbecuing skills are rather excellent, as you would expect from a breeder, and someone has kindly remembered to bring some food that isn’t laden with fat. Brian’s sitting next to Michael, who regales him with his latest exploits, while admonishing JR every now and then about keeping her voice down. It doesn’t have any discernible effect.

“I need a smoke,” Brian says after nearly two hours of eating, drinking and talking. He goes into the house to find his cigarettes and then just carries on walking to stand on the porch outside the front door for some much needed peace and quiet. He can always pretend he’s doing it for JR’s sake.

He can’t help wishing that he’d never come. The afternoon’s gone better than expected. People have stopped being awkward around him for the most part, but he can’t get the image of Justin holding JR in his arms out of his head. He could have done without that.

One day, a couple of months ago, when he and Justin were lying tangled together in their bed after a particularly vigorous round of fucking, or three, Brian decided that he was happy – that meeting Justin again hadn’t been a sign to end it all, like he’d thought, but a pretty obvious hint to start living again. Brian’s happiness is of a quiet, contented kind now, a kind that he never thought he’d reach. He knows that deep down he’ll never shake that worry that it will all disappear again one day, in a flash or in a drawn-out decline, but he also accepts that this is just the way life is – not worth living if you don’t take risks. Brian’s fighting spirit has returned together with his sleep. He still has the odd sleepless night, but his sleeping hours have gradually increased over the months and, in general, he feels more human nowadays.

He doesn’t turn around when he hears someone come out of the house. He doesn’t need to because he knows it’s Justin – too quiet for anyone else. Justin comes to stand next to him and they watch in silence as a teenager leisurely rides his bike along the road.

“There will never be another child,” Brian says finally.

“Huh?”

“I’ll never have another child. I just couldn’t.”

“I know that, Brian. I never expected that we’d have a child. I don’t really want one. JR is quite a handful. I’m always glad when I can hand her back to Melanie. And I suspect that Molly will have kids one day. It’ll be enough. You and I aren't really the type of couple who’d have a child anyway.”

“You may change your mind one day.”

“I already have. I admit I kind of wanted a more traditional family when I was younger but not anymore. I wouldn’t enjoy it. I’m not cut out to be a full-time dad. So, we’re good.”

“Are we?” Brian looks at Justin and sees nothing but open honesty there. “Because now’s the time to say otherwise.”

Justin smiles and takes a sideways step towards him, causing Brian to automatically put his arm around his shoulders. “Yeah, we’re good.”

A couple of hours later, when Melanie decides that it’s time to take JR home, everybody starts leaving. Brian is happily buzzed from too many beers and doesn’t really mind one way or the other, except that Justin’s been squeezing his thigh suggestively under the table for the last half hour and Brian can think of better things to do.

There are a lot of shouted goodbyes and promises to do this again for Thanksgiving, because Brian and Justin are rarely in Pittsburgh and that won’t ever change now. When Brian has said goodbye to Debbie, he lights up another cigarette on the front porch, while she gives Justin a long hug. Brian is almost – but not quite – out of earshot when he hears her say quietly: “Thank you for bringing him home, Sunshine.”

Brian can’t help but agree.

 

 

 


End file.
